Past News Items

Interior Secretary Cecil D. Andrus and Assistant Secretary for Indian Affairs Forrest Gerard today announced a policy decision governing the procedures for planning Indian water projects.

The new policy will provide for a more appropriate analysis of water development projects on Indian lands as part of the implementation of the Principles and Standards for Planning Water and Related Land Resources of the Water Resources Council.

Commissioner of Indian Affairs Robert L. Bennett announced today a series of shifts in supervisory personnel affecting four Indian reservations and one Area Office of the Bureau of Indian Affairs.

Washington, D.C. – The Navajo Nation and Cherokee Nation are eligible to conduct gaming activities on newly acquired trust lands under decisions approved by the Department of the Interior today.

The Department of the Interior is publishing notice in the Federal Register on its proposal to acknowledge the Grand Traverse Band of Ottawa and Chippewa Indians bf Northern Michigan as an Indian tribe, Assistant Secretary Forrest Gerard said today

The formal acknowledgment as an Indian tribe, which includes the recognition of a government to-government relationship with the United States, would entitle the Grand Traverse Band to the same privileges and immunities available to other federally recognized tribes by virtue of their status as Indian tribes.

The Bureau of Indian Affairs has announced the award of a $913,000 contract "for construction of new school facilities on the Fort Apache Indian Reservation at Cibecue, Arizona. Successful bidder was Taylor Construction, Inc., of Tucson, Arizona.

The contract calls for construction of an 8-classroom school building to replace a smaller structure that has become dilapidated and inadequate. The new school will accommodate a total of 240 Indian children, 80 more than formerly were served.

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar and Assistant Secretary-Indian Affairs Larry Echo Hawk today praised President Obama’s signing of legislation that will strengthen tribal law enforcement on American Indian reservations. Secretary Salazar, Interior Deputy Secretary David Hayes, Assistant Secretary Echo Hawk, and Interior Solicitor Hilary Tompkins joined the President at a White House signing ceremony.

Bureau of Indian Affairs education administrators nationwide met August 7-9 in Duluth, Minn., to discuss the implementation of new Federal laws affecting Indian education programs, BIA Director of Indian Education Programs Earl Barlow said today.

Federal supervision has been terminated for four more rancherias in California in accord with recent legislation, the Department of the Interior announced today. The newly terminated Indian lands are North Fork and Picayune, in Madera County; Graton in Sonoma County; and Pinoleville in Mendocino County.

Under a Congressional Act of August 18, 1958, naming 41 rancherias, and a 1964 amendment to include the remaining 74 California rancherias or reservations, Indians are permitted to distribute lands and other rancheria assets among themselves.

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar issued the following statement regarding remarks made at the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues by United States Permanent Representative to the United Nations Ambassador Susan E. Rice on April 20, 2010:

Interior Secretary Cecil D. Andrus today announced he was cOITU11-itting the Department to participate in efforts for salmon rearing and other cooperative action to attempt to reverse the decline in the salmon and steelhead fisheries on the Klamath and Trinity Rivers in Northern California.

In a letter to Huey D. Johnson, Secretary for Resources in California Andrus said: