Past News Items

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Secretary of the Interior Sally Jewell will visit South Florida this week for a series of events focused on restoring the health of the Everglades. While there, Jewell will also meet with the Seminole Tribe of Florida to announce a milestone in increasing self-determination and economic development for Native American tribes.

Secretary of the Interior Stewart L. Udall today announced three appointments to high-level positions in the Bureau of Indian Affairs and said the appointments were "key steps in making the Bureau more responsive to the needs of the Indian people."

Named to the top-level posts under Commissioner of Indian Affairs Robert LaFollette Bennett were:

-- Theodore W. Taylor, a career civil servant, to be Deputy Commissioner. Taylor has been Assistant to the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution since 1959, and is a veteran of Interior and BIA service.

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Assistant Secretary-Indian Affairs Larry Echo Hawk today announced that the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) Office of Justice Services (OJS) will conduct tribal consultation with the federally recognized tribes throughout the month of October, 2010. A letter announcing the meetings was sent to tribal leaders on September 17, 2010. “The input from tribal leaders is crucial to ensuring safety in Indian Country,” Echo Hawk said.

Secretary of the Interior Stewart L. Udall today gave the Department's Distinguished Service Award for outstanding records or exceptional contribution to the public service to 43 employees and a Valor Award to another employee for bravery in attempting to save a child's life.

Included among the recipients of certificates for superior Federal service were John M. Kelly, former Assistant Secretary for Mineral Resources, and Dr. Thomas B. Nolan, former Director of the Geological Survey.

WASHINGTON – Deputy Assistant Secretary-Indian Affairs Donald “Del” Laverdure, acting on behalf of Assistant Secretary – Indian Affairs Larry Echo Hawk who was travelling, issued on July 2, 2010, a proposed finding not to acknowledge the petitioner known as the Choctaw Nation of Florida (Petitioner #288) as an Indian tribe. The petitioner, located in Marianna, Fla., has approximately 77 members. It claims to be a group of Choctaw Indians that migrated from North Carolina to Georgia, and then Florida following the Indian removal of the 1830s.

NEW OKLAHOMA PLASTICS PIPE PLANT WILL TRAIN INDIANS

Drilling Specialties Company, a subsidiary of Phillips Petroleum Company has announced plans to establish a plastic pipe factory in the Mid-American Industrial District, near Pryor, Oklahoma.

The Company, which expects the new plant to be operating by April, is negotiating an on-the-job training program with the Bureau of Indian Affairs to prepare Indian workers for jobs in the plastic industry. An initial group of 20 Cherokees will be employed, with the figure doubling when full-scale operations are reached.

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar today announced the winning college and high school teams that designed and built the most efficient portable wind turbine systems as part of the 2010 Indian Education Renewable Energy Challenge with the Argonne National Laboratory. The awards were presented today at the Interior Department’s headquarters in Washington, D.C.

Art objects by the famed San Ildefonso Pueblo, N. M., potter, Maria Martinez, her son, Popovi Da, and her grandson, Tony Da, have been assembled for showing in the Department of the Interior's Art Galleries in Washington, D. C., May 16-June 30, Mrs. Stewart L. Udall, president of the Center for Arts of Indian America, announced today. The artists will be present in the Galleries at various times during the first week.

ALBUQUERQUE, NM (January 12, 2010) – U.S. Department of the Interior officials today welcomed college football All-American and Rhodes Scholar Myron Rolle to Isleta Elementary School at the Pueblo of Isleta, New Mexico, American Indian Reservation to kick off the new Our Way to Health™ Program.

From Alaska to Florida, resource managers for the Department of the Interior are watchfully scanning snow and rainfall figures as the first signs of spring appear- - -hoping that last year's disastrous fire record will not recur in 1967.

Over most of the 550 million acres managed by Interior agencies, 1966 was called the worst fire year since 1957, year of the great Alaska fires. Paradoxically, 1965 had been one of the lightest years on record for fire damage. And the prime factor, as usual appeared to be the weather.