Past News Items

WASHINGTON, DC -- Secretary of the Interior Manuel Lujan, Jr. announced today that Secretary of Education Lauro Cavazos will join him on a two-day, three-state tour of Indian schools this week. The unprecedented visit by two Cabinet members to schools administered by the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) in California, Arizona and New Mexico "reflects the commitment to improved education for Native Americans that President Bush, Secretary Cavazos, and I share," said Lujan.

Interior Assistant Secretary Ken Smith today approved a joint venture agreement for the development of oil and gas on the Fort Peck Indian Reservation in Montana.

The contract between the Assiniboine and Sioux Tribes of the reservation and the U.S. Energy corporation was the first contract approved under the new Indian Minerals Development Act of 1982, signed by President Reagan last December.

Interior Assistant Secretary Ken Smith has appointed Carl Shaw, a Cherokee Indian, as his special assistant and director of public affairs for the Bureau of Indian Affairs.

Smith said that Shaw would be the principal counselor to the Assistant Secretary and the Deputy Assistant Secretary for Operations on all matters of public affairs nature.

Interior Assistant Secretary for Indian Affairs Ken Smith has appointed Jacob Lestenkof, an Aleut from St. George Island, Alaska, as the Bureau of Indian Affairs' area director for Alaska. The BIA's Alaska area office is in Juneau.

Lestenkof's appointment is Smith's first official action as Assistant Secretary, since being sworn into office May 15.

Smith said Lestenkof's "extensive experience with both Alaska Native organizations and the government demonstrated his qualifications for this position of critical importance to the Alaska Natives."

Commissioner of Indian Affairs William Hallett announced today a policy, pursuant to the Anti-Deficiency Act, to assure that the Bureau of Indian Affairs does not spend more than Congress entitles it to spend.

The policy prohibits all area directors and program directors from obligating funds in excess of Congressional appropriations, on penalty of “appropriate administrative discipline, including, when circumstances warrant, suspension from duty without pay, or removal from office.”

Headquarters of the Fort Berthold Indian Agency is being moved from Elbowoods to Newtown, North Dakota, the Bureau of Indian Affairs announced today.

The move, part of the readjustment and relocation at Fort Berthold made necessary by construction of the Garrison Dam and Reservoir Project of the Missouri River Basin Development, was originally scheduled to take place later. Because of an emergency need to use the agency buildings at Elbowoods for school purposes, however, the move is being undertaken at the present time and should be completed in the next few weeks.

Increased emphasis on the ultimate goal of transferring basic Indian Bureau functions either to the Indians themselves or to State and local highlighted the 1952 work of the Bureau, Commissioner Dillon S. Myer said today.

Among the major moves during the year were Indian Bureau-sponsored bills introduced in the last Congress to transfer civil and criminal jurisdiction over Indians to the States of Minnesota, Wisconsin, Nebraska, California, Oregon and Washington;

Reappointment of Harry J. W. Belvin, Durant, Oklahoma, as principal chief of the Oklahoma Choctaw Indian Nation for a four year term was announced today by Secretary of the Interior Douglas McKay.

Belvin, who was first appointed to the position in 1948, was renamed on the basis of balloting by the tribal members from September through October 10. In the tribal election he received 5,254 votes and his opponent, Hampton Anderson of Atoka, 2,602.

Tribal members also expressed a preference for the four-year term by a margin of roughly two to one.

Action by the Bureau of Indian Affairs to clear up a 49-year-old injustice against a full blood Idaho Indian was announced today by Secretary of the Interior Douglas McKay.

The Indian is James J. Miles, a 70-year-old member of the Nez Perce Tribe and

Deacon of the Presbyterian Church, The Bureau's action, taken by Commissioner Glenn L. Emmons on July 29, was approval of an application filed by Miles about a year ago for a patent-in-fee or unrestricted title to a 114-acre tract near Orofino,

Secretary of the Interior Douglas McKay today announced the award of four contracts for the construction of school facilities on the Navajo Indian Reservation in Arizona and New Mexico. The total amount of the awards is $1,647,791.

This is the first step in the development of the Navajo Emergency Educational Program.

The awards are as follows: