Past News Items

WASHINGTON – Today President Donald Trump proposed a $936.3 million Fiscal Year (FY) 2020 budget for the Department of the Interior’s Bureau of Indian Education (BIE).

The BIE’s primary mission is to provide quality education opportunities from early childhood through life in accordance with a tribe’s need for cultural and economic well-being, in keeping with the wide diversity of American Indian and Alaska Native tribes as distinct cultural and governmental entities.

Four Northwest Indian Tribes will receive in-lieu fishing sites on the Columbia River, which they are entitled to through treaty rights, thanks to a memorandum of understanding signed today by the Department of the Interior and the Department of the Army.

Dr. Noah Allen, a Creek Indian, has been named Superintendent of the Phoenix Indian High School, Commissioner of Indian Affairs Morris Thompson announced today.

Allen, who is currently serving as the Acting Director of Indian Education Programs for the Bureau of Indian Affairs is expected to assume his duties in Phoenix in early November. Before coming to Washington, D.C. for his present assignment, Allen was Executive Director of the National Indian Education Association.

Secretary of the Interior Bruce Babbitt will brief the news media Thursday, April 8 at 1 p.m. on the President's FY 1994 budget request for the Department of the Interior. The briefing will be held in the auditorium of the South Interior Building, 1951 Constitution Ave. NW.

Commissioner of Indian Affairs Morris Thompson announced today that John Buffalohorn, a member of the Northern Cheyenne Indian Tribe has been appointed Superintendent of the Bureau of Indian Affairs' Fort Totten Agency in North Dakota.

The agency serves the Devils Lake Sioux Tribe.

Buffalohorn has been the Administrative Manager of the Fort Peck Agency, Poplar, and Montana.

Interior Assistant Secretary Ross Swimmer Thursday told Senator James McClure that every option will be examined before a final decision is made concerning the relocation of the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) agency office in Lapwai.

“I assured Senator McClure that we would look at remodeling the present site; other sites in the area; or new construction. We will not make a decision until all of those have been considered,” Swimmer said.

Commissioner of Indian Affairs Morris Thompson announced today that new regulations governing the fishing rights of the Metlakatla Indian Community within the Annette Islands Reserve in Alaska were published in the Federal Register June 5.

The purpose of the new regulations is to give the Metlakatla Indians the opportunity to catch their fair share of the annual salmon run.

Salmon canning is the chief industry of the community and the Reserve includes the waters within 3,000 feet of the shoreline of the islands.

On September 1, 2020, the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) approved the Kickapoo Traditional Tribe of Texas’ (Tribe) Part 3 Business Leases, Chapter 27 Leasing Code under the Helping Expedite and Advance Responsible Tribal Homeownership Act of 2012 (HEARTH Act). With this approval, the Tribe is authorized to enter into business leases without further BIA approval.

Secretary of the Interior Manuel Lujan announced that effective November l, 1991, the Bureau of Reclamation will implement interim operating criteria at Glen Canyon Dam on the Colorado River. The criteria will remain in effect until the Glen Canyon Dam Environmental Impact Statement (GCDEIS) is completed in late 1993 and final criteria for the operation of the facility are approved and implemented

Funeral services were held January 9 for the last full-blooded member of the Mandan Indian Tribe, Mrs. Mattie Grinnell, who lived to be 108 years old. Mrs. Grinnell died January 6 at the home of her daughter, Mrs. Rose Fournier, in Twin Buttes, North Dakota.

Living through more than a century of tremendous changes for her people and her land, Mrs. Grinnell retained to the end an amazing vitality, charm and spirit.