Past News Items

The Department of the Interior today recommended enactment of legislation that would turn over to the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Indian Tribes of Montana 527 acres of Government-owned land on the Flathead Reservation valued at $38,207.

The acreage recommended for transfer was bought by the Government from the Indians in 1904 for $958.75 as part of an area to be used for Indian Bureau administration. It is no longer needed for this purpose. The only building on the land is owned by the tribal organization.

The Department of the Interior is publishing in the Federal Register a notice that 120,681.25 acres of lands formerly under the jurisdiction of the Bureau of Land Management will be held in trust by the United States for the Navajo Indians, for use in connection with an irrigation project.

WASHINGTON – Assistant Secretary-Indian Affairs Larry Echo Hawk will deliver a keynote address at the National Congress of American Indians (NCAI) Mid-Year Conference on Tuesday, June 14, 2011, in Milwaukee, Wis. Echo Hawk will be speaking on the accomplishments and progress made by Indian Affairs over the last 24 months. He will address such topics as: federal Indian policy, economic development, restoration of homelands, Indian energy development, safe communities, education, Indian gaming, and Indian Affairs leadership.

Legislation to lift mineral lease limitations that have hampered the development of Indian tribal lands has been submitted to Congress by the Department of the Interior, Assistant Secretary Roger C. Ernst announced today.

Specifically, the proposed legislation would remove the 10-year limit on nonproducing leases which, Assistant Secretary Ernst said, prevents tribes in some cases from realizing the full benefit of their mineral assets.

The Department of the Interior announced today that it plans to distribute more than $14 million to the Absentee Delaware Tribe of Western Oklahoma and the Cherokee Delaware Tribe of Oklahoma on July 14, 1977.

The Department announced June 16 that it planned to make the distribution September 15, 1977, but that it would modify its plans for distribution of the funds in accord with any forthcoming court order. Last week the Oklahoma Delawares were given a writ of mandamus requiring the Department to make payment "forthwith."

WASHINGTON – Assistant Secretary–Indian Affairs Larry Echo Hawk today issued a final determination not to acknowledge the petitioner known as the Juaneño Band of Mission Indians (Petitioner #84B) as an Indian tribe. This petitioner, located in Santa Ana, Calif., has 455 members.

Walwyn S. Watkins, superintendent of the Bureau of Indian Affairs boarding school at Wrangell, Alaska, has been named the new superintendent of the Bureau’s Fort Belknap Agency at Harlem, Montana, effective May 28, the Department of the Interior announced today.

He succeeds Howard S. Dushane, who transferred last February as superintendent of the Cheyenne River Agency at Eagle Butte, S. Dak.

Secretary of the Interior Thomas S. Kleppe and officers of the Alaska Native Regional Corporation, Konaig, Inc., today signed an agreement which will facilitate the conveyance of more than one million acres of land to the Corporation and its associated village corporations under the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act.

The agreement provides the mechanism for processing land selections in the Konaig region and effecting conveyance of the land despite litigation pending in court.

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar and Attorney General Eric Holder today announced a settlement of the long-running and highly contentious Cobell class action lawsuit regarding the U.S. government's trust management and accounting of over three hundred thousand individual American Indian trust accounts. Also speaking at the press conference today were Deputy Secretary of the Interior David Hayes and Associate Attorney General Tom Perrelli.

Twelve studies to determine the feasibility of economic development which could create greater job opportunities on Indian reservations and in the native villages of Alaska are being undertaken by the Bureau of Indian Affairs with technical assistance funds provided by the Area Redevelopment Administration of the Department of Commerce, the Department of the Interior announced today.

Contracts totaling $402,493 have been awarded to the lowest qualified bidders for carrying out the studies in 11 States.