Past News Items

The Bureau of Indian Affairs of the Department of the Interior and the Federal Housing Administration of the Housing and Home Finance Agency today jointly announced the signing of an agreement opening up new possibilities for FHA-insured financing of home building and housing improvements on Indian reservations.

Such financing has been available in the past, but its availability has been limited by complications arising from the trust or restricted status of most Indian-owned land.

Secretary of the Interior Cecil D. Andrus pledged the full cooperation of his Department in carrying out the five-year plan for the allocation of Columbia River fish runs which was announced today.

"I want to extend my earnest personal congratulations to all those who have worked so effectively to achieve this equitable solution to the volatile situations arising from the implementation of the mandates of the courts on Indian fishing rights," Secretary Andrus said.

WASHINGTON – A graduation ceremony for members comprising the inaugural class of a federally supported pilot project to train American Indians in the commercial building trade will be held December 19, 2008, near the city of Chicago.

The Department of the Interior has announced its support of Federal legislation providing for an exchange of lands between the United States and the Southern Ute Indian Tribe of southwestern Colorado in connection with the construction of the Navajo Dam and Reservoir unit of the Colorado River Storage Project.

Some 707.5 acres of Southern Ute tribal land are needed for the reservoir project, the Department explained, and the tribe has expressed a desire to exchange this acreage for public land instead of selling it for cash.

Ralph F. Keen, a Cherokee Indian from Oklahoma, has been appointed Acting Director of the Bureau of Indian Affairs' Office of Trust
Responsibilities, Commissioner of Indian Affairs Morris Thompson has announced.

In this position, Keen is responsible for the administration of more than 50 million acres of tribal lands held in trust by the United States.

On Thursday, February 12, 2009, Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar will testify before the Senate Indian Affairs Committee on his views and priorities on American Indian issues. The full committee hearing is scheduled to begin at 9:30 a.m. in the Dirksen Senate Office Building, Room SD 628.

Who: Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar

What: Secretary Salazar’s testimony before the Senate Indian Affairs Committee

When: 9:30 a.m. Thursday, Feb. 12, 2009

Secretary of the Interior Stewart L. Udall has approved an order extending until January 1, 1969, the period of trust on Indian lands, both tribal and individually owned, in cases where the trusteeship or restrictions would otherwise expire in the years from 1964 through 1968.

Commissioner of Indian Affairs Morris Thompson announced today that John J. Pereau, a Sioux Indian from the Fort Peck Reservation, has been appointed Superintendent of the Bureau of Indian Affairs' Crow Creek Agency in South Dakota. Pereau, Economic Development Officer at the agency, has been functioning as the Acting Superintendent since April of this year.

WASHINGTON – Assistant Secretary – Indian Affairs Carl J. Artman today issued a final determination not to acknowledge the petitioner known as the St. Francis/Sokoki Band of Abenakis of Vermont as an Indian tribe. This petitioner, located in Franklin County in northwestern Vermont, has 1,171 members with enrollment files completed to the petitioner’s satisfaction.

Commissioner of Indian Affairs Philleo Nash will make his first official visit to Indian Bureau installations and native villages in the State of Alaska January 20 through 29, the Department of the Interior announced today.

Mr. Nash will dedicate new school buildings constructed by the Bureau at Kotzebue on January 21 and at Barrow on January 23, attend the inauguration of Governor William Egan in Juneau on January 26, and visit the Bureau's Mount Edgecumbe boarding school near Sitka on January 28.