Past News Items

New superintendents of the Bureau of Indian Affairs for Eastern Navajo Agency, Crownpoint, N.M., and Fort Totten Agency, Fort Totten, N. D., were named today by Commissioner Robert L. Bennett. Both superintendents are of Indian descent.

Edward O. Plummer, Tohatchi, N.M., was names to the superintendence of the Eastern Navajo Agency. He is now realty officer at the Navajo Area Office, Window Rock, Ariz. Plummer is the first Navajo Indian appointed by Commissioner Bennett to be superintendent of an agency in the Navajo area.

On Monday, December 18, 2000, at 11:00 a.m. (EST), Assistant Secretary-Indian Affairs Kevin Gover will formally open the Ely S. Parker Building, the Bureau of Indian Affairs’ (BIA) new facility in Reston, Virginia, with the unveiling of a plaque naming the building for the first American Indian to serve as Commissioner for Indian Affairs. The facility will house the BIA’s Office of Management and Administration and Office of Information Technology, and the U.S. Department of the Interior’s National Business Center (NBC).

Secretary of the Interior Stewart L. Udall has announced the appointment of Henry B. Taliaferro, Jr., of Oklahoma, as an Associate Solicitor to head the Division of Indian Affairs in the Office of the Solicitor in Washington, D. C.

Taliaferro, 36, is a native of Shawnee, Okla., who graduated from high school in Oklahoma City and holds a bachelor of arts and a law degree from the University of Oklahoma.

The Assistant Secretary-Indian Affairs, Kevin Gover, today issued two proposed positive findings concerning petitions for Federal acknowledgment from the Eastern Pequot Indians and the Paucatuck Eastern Pequot Indians, both groups are headquartered in North Stonington, Connecticut.

Secretary of the Interior Stewart L. Udall announced today he is sending Robert E. Vaughan as a personal representative to Alaska to assist in drafting legislation related to Alaska Native land claims against the United States.

Vaughan, Deputy Assistant Secretary of Interior for Public Land Management, will meet with the legislative drafting committee of the Alaska Federation of Natives in Anchorage December 6 and 7.

WASHINGTON, D.C. - Acting Assistant Secretary - Indian Affairs Aurene M. Martin today announced she has issued a Notice of Proposed Finding whereby she proposes to decline to acknowledge that the Golden Hill Paugussett Tribe (petition #81) in Trumbull, Conn., exists as an Indian tribe within the meaning of Federal law.

The maximum development of Indian economic, industrial and employment potential on a nationwide basis, and the problems involved, will be considered at a meeting sponsored by the Department of ~he Interior's Bureau of Indian Affairs in Oklahoma late this month.

Officials from the Bureau's 11 area offices in the Midwest, West and Alaska and the Washington headquarters will meet with business and industrial leaders and representatives of the Economic Development Administration and Small Business Administration.

Denver, CO - The Bureau of Indian Affairs, the Indian Health Service and the Administration for Native Americans are joining forces to hold the first national conference for Native American youth, parents and organizations serving Native American youth. The Youth First: The Future of Indian America Conference will be held on June 2, 3, and 4, 1999 in Denver, Colorado.

Secretary of the Interior Stewart L. Udall announced today the appointment of Lloyd H. New as Superintendent of the Institute of American Indian Arts, a school operated by the Bureau of Indian Affairs in Santa Fe, N. M. New has been the Institute's Arts Director.

His promotion is effective August 13.

I join Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt and Attorney General Janet Reno in strongly opposing proposals by some members of Congress to levy taxes on tribal government revenues from gaming and other economic activities. As they noted in a joint letter to U.S. House of Representatives Ways and Means Committee Chairman Bill Archer, H.R. 325 and H.R. 1554 are contrary to the United States' longstanding protection of tribal self-government and the Federal trust responsibility.