Past News Items

WASHINGTON – Assistant Secretary – Indian Affairs Carl J. Artman will appear on the afternoon of Monday, November 12, 2007, at the National Congress of American Indians (NCAI) 64th Annual Convention, where he will address delegates at the Second General Assembly and attend NCAI’s session for tribal leaders on the Indian Affairs Modernization Initiative scheduled for that evening. The event will take place in Denver, Colo., at the Hyatt Regency Denver at the Colorado Convention Center.

Commissioner of Indian Affairs Morris Thompson today announced the first in a series of steps that must be undertaken by the nearly 3,000 Menominee Indians of Wisconsin to restore their tribal government which was terminated in 1961.

Tribal candidates for the Menominee Restoration Committee will be nominated January 19, with elections to be held no later than March 5.

PHOENIX - Secretary of the Interior Dirk Kempthorne opened the first-ever National Native American Economic Policy Summit with a video-taped message to over 500 tribal leaders, federal officials and leaders of Native organizations encouraging Summit participants to “work together collaboratively to formulate policy recommendations that will improve the quality of life in America’s diverse and growing indigenous communities.”

Almost $1 million to be used to help Indian students in public schools has been awarded under contracts this month to Indian tribal groups in the Great Lakes Area, Commissioner of Indian Affairs Morris Thompson announced today. The contracts were let by the BLA's Minneapolis Area Office.

The Minnesota Chippewa Resource Development Corporation received the bulk of the money, $863,668, for the benefit of the six Chippewa Indian reservations in Minnesota - Bois Forte, Fond du Lac, Grand Portage, Leech Lake, Mille Lacs and White Earth.

WASHINGTON -- Secretary of the Interior Dirk Kempthorne today praised the U.S. Senate's confirmation of Carl J.' Artman to serve as Assistant Secretary of the Interior for Indian Affairs.

Artman, an enrolled member of the Oneida Tribe of Wisconsin, currently serves as the department's Associate Solicitor for Indian Affairs. He previously was chief counsel of the Oneida Tribe and served on the staff of U.S. Rep. Michael Oxley.

Secretary of the Interior Rogers C. B. Morton today announced an encompassing decision on the controversy involving leases and exploratory permits for coal development on the Northern Cheyenne Indian reservation in Montana.

The Northern Cheyenne Tribe petitioned the Secretary in January 1974 to withdraw the Department’s approval of leases and exploratory permits for strip mining of coal on about 214,000 acres of the 433,740-acre reservation.

WASHINGTON – Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) Director W. Patrick Ragsdale toured the Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians Reservation yesterday to view the damage wrought by Hurricane Katrina and to meet with Choctaw Chief Phillip Martin and tribal officials on the Bureau’s continuing relief efforts in the area.

Commissioner of Indian Affairs Morris Thompson today announced the appointment of George A. Laverdure, 58, enrolled member of the Turtle Mountain Chippewa Indian Tribe, to the post of Superintendent of the Crow Agency, Mont., of the Bureau of Indian Affairs. He has been serving in that post in an acting capacity since June 1973. His appointment was effective March 31.

Anson Baker, former Crow Agency Superintendent, has been transferred to the Fort Berthold Agency, New Town, N. Dak., as Superintendent.

WASHINGTON – Interior Associate Deputy Secretary Jim Cason today announced that Captain John Herrington, an enrolled member of the Chickasaw Nation of Oklahoma and the first American Indian astronaut to serve with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, will provide the keynote address this morning at the Bureau of Indian Affairs Office of Indian Education Programs (OIEP) FACE and Baby FACE National Training Conference in Pearl River, Miss. The event is scheduled for March 8-10 at the Silver Star and Golden Moon Resort on the Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians reservation.

Secretary of the Interior Thomas S. Kleppe today hailed the new spirit of determination and confidence among Indian leaders. In remarks to 200 leaders of the American Indian community at a White House meeting, Secretary Kleppe said: "Whether young or old, the Indian leaders today have a new spirit --perhaps it is revival of a very old spirit-- of determination and of confidence."