Past News Items

Acting Assistant Secretary-Indian Affairs Michael J. Anderson today announced that effective today Loretta Tuell, Director of Interior’s Office of American Indian Trust (OAIT), has been designated the Acting Deputy Assistant Secretary – Indian Affairs until the end of the Clinton Administration. She will also continue as OAIT director where she is responsible for advising the Secretary and the Assistant Secretary – Indian Affairs on decisions, actions, and procedures relating to the Department’s trust responsibilities affecting American Indian trust assets. Ms.

The Confederated Indian Tribes of the Warm Springs Reservation in Oregon were warmly commended today by the Bureau of Indian Affairs of the Department of the Interior for the "progressive step" they have taken in entering into a $100,000 contract with Oregon State College for a study of the human and natural resources on the reservation.

A $9.1-million contract has been awarded by the Bureau of Indian Affairs to the Ute Mountain Ute Tribe for a much-needed adult and juvenile detention center that will be constructed by the tribe's Weeminuche Construction Authority.

Award of a $33,014.25 bridge and flood-control construction project on the Hoopa Indian Reservation, Humboldt County, California, was announced today by the Department of the Interior.

The project, on the main route to Hoopa Agency, involves the construction of a continuous slab bridge on existing substructures, and protecting levees which will include roadway approaches to the bridge and the developed areas inundated by the floods of the winter of 1955-56. The road is on a school bus route and serves a substantial number of the reservation population.

Ada E. Deer, Assistant Secretary for Indian Affairs, will appear on ABC's Unity '99 hosted program which is a nationally televised electronic town hall meeting on Affirmative Action. The program is scheduled to be aired on Wednesday, June 12, 1996 which is telecasted from Chicago, on channel 7. This program is replacing ABC's Nightline on the 12th.

The broadcast will take place on WLS-TV (ABC), Channel 7, at 11:30 EDT; 10:30 CDT.

Enactment of legislation that would add about 845 acres of public land to two Indian reservations in southern California and 80 acres to a reservation in Nevada has been recommended to Congress by the Department of the Interior, Assistant Secretary Roger Ernst announced today.

The U. S. Supreme Court rendered its decision on the Seminole Tribe of Florida v. Florida et al., case on March 27, 1996. The 5 to 4 decision held that the "Eleventh Amendment prevents Congress from authorizing suits in federal court by Indian tribes against States to enforce" the provision in the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act (IGRA) requiring States to "negotiate in good faith."

Commissioner of Indian Affairs Glenn L. Emmons announced today that he has accepted “with regrets’ the resignation of William R. Olsen, effective May 12, as Area Director of the Interior Department’s Indian Bureau at Juneau, Alaska.

Secretary of the Interior Manuel Lujan met today with South Carolina Governor Carroll Campbell, Senator Strom Thurmond and representatives from the offices of Senator Ernest Hollings and Congressman John Spratt to discuss the terms of the Catawba \ Indian land settlement.

"This appears to be an excellent settlement proposal, and I will do whatever I can to gain the support of the Administration for it," Lujan said. "All parties to this historic agreement are to be congratulated for their hard work."

Legislation that would make it a Federal criminal offense to trespass for hunting, fishing or trapping purposes on Indian reservations and other Indian lands held in trust by the United States is needed to protect the property rights of Indian tribal groups, Assistant Secretary of the Interior Roger Ernst said today.

The Interior Department, Mr. Ernst pointed out, has reported favorably to Congress on H.R. 7240, a bill which would provide such protection by amending appropriate sections of the United States Code.