Past News Items

Transfer of 603.2 acres of land in Sawyer County, Wisconsin, together with the buildings, from jurisdiction of the Bureau of Indian Affairs to the Wisconsin Department of Public Welfare was announced today by Secretary of the Interior Douglas McKay.

Secretary of the Interior Rogers C. B. Korton announced today that he has notified the Truckee-Carson Irrigation District in Nevada that its contract for management of the irrigation works of the Newlands Reclamation Project will be terminated October 31, 1974.

The Secretary said that the immediate reason for the action is the repeated violations by the District of the Department's operating criteria and procedures for the Project.

Billings, MT - The second consultation on the Buy Indian Act will be held Wednesday, August 15, 2012. The Buy Indian Act provides Indian Affairs with the authority to set-aside procurement contracts for qualified Indian-owned businesses. This proposed rule describes uniform administrative procedures that Indian Affairs will use in all of its locations to encourage procurement of goods and services from eligible Indian economic enterprises, as authorized by the Buy Indian Act.

The Indian youths of America are going to college and other institutions of higher learning in ever-increasingly numbers, Commissioner of Indian Affairs Glen L. Emmons said today.

According to a nationwide Indian Bureau survey, there are over 2,300 young Indian men and women who are now taking courses in schools above the high school level. The total twenty years ago was about one-third that number.

Many of these education-seeking youngsters are able to pay their own ways; others are being aided by scholarships, grants and working in nonclass periods.

The Bureau of Indian Affairs ship North Star III sidled up to craggy Little Diomede in the Bering Strait between Siberia and Alaska last month and the, skilled crew worked for 43 straight hours --helped by the fact that there are now only about four hours of darkness a day on the tiny island to upload more than 400 tons of building material under conditions that would have challenged the Navy Seabees.

WASHINGTON, D.C.—Acting Assistant Secretary-Indian Affairs Donald E. “Del” Laverdure lauded Darwin Cajero, a student at the Southwestern Indian Polytechnic Institute (SIPI) in Albuquerque, N.M., who was a featured speaker at the sesquicentennial celebration of the Morrill Land-grant Act of 1862, this past Tuesday, June 26, 2012, at the Ronald Reagan Building and International Trade Center.

Rollins Fleet Leasing Inc. of Rehoboth Beach, Del., was the lowest bidder for two contracts by the Bureau of Indian Affairs for leasing of 39 passenger cars and station wagons for two field installations, the Department of the Interior announced today.

Nine bids from six bidders were received by the Bureau for the rental contracts for the vehicles for use at its offices in Cherokee, N. C., and Albuquerque, N. Mex.

Distribution of Indian Claims Commission judgments totaling over

$5.5 million awarded to the Miami Indians of Oklahoma and Indiana, will be made beginning about July 19, Marvin L. Franklin, Assistant to the Secretary of the Interior for Indian Affairs, announced today.

WASHINGTON – The Department of the Interior (DOI) today announced the publication of the United States Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (USEITI) Stakeholder Assessment prepared by the independent third-party facilitator, the Consensus Building Institute (CBI). The Stakeholder Assessment includes suggested options for establishing a Multi-Stakeholder Group (MSG), which will be comprised of representatives from government, industry and civil society and will be responsible for overseeing implementation of USEITI.

Secretary of the Interior Fred A. Seaton announced today that Paul B. Murphy, food specialist with the Bureau of Indian Affairs, is being assigned to emergency duty with the American Red Cross in Austria as director of a program for feeding Hungarian refugees.

The Indian Bureau food expert is scheduled to fly to Salzburg, Austria, on his new assignment Monday, December 3.