Past News Items

The Bureau of Indian Affairs announces that it has lifted a moratorium that has been in effect since 1997, on the sale of chat from the Tar Creek Superfund site located in northeastern Oklahoma. The lifting of the moratorium will lead the way to assist with the clean up of the area and provide a financial gain for the Indian landowners. Chat has commercial value, even though it is mine waste. It resembles a fine gravel and can be used for a variety of purposes, including fill material, road bedding, and aggregate in concrete and asphalt.

The Department of the Interior today proposed new regulations so Indian tribes having organized forest enterprises may be able to sell lumber and other forest products without supervision by the Bureau of Indian Affairs.

Bureau guidance over sales, the Department explained, is needed for small scale operations where the tribal enterprise organization has limited experience in conducting such sales. It also serves a purpose where there is no formal agreement between the tribal forest enterprise and the tribal or individual Indian owners of the forest land.

(WASHINGTON) – With the stroke of a pen today, President George W. Bush signed into law the “No Child Left Behind Act of 2001,” the historic education bill that for the first time will bring to BIA-funded schools the four pillars of his education reform plan: accountability and testing, flexibility and local control, funding for what works and expanded parental options for children attending failing schools.

The Oglala Sioux of Pine Ridge Reservation, South Dakota, will be the first Indian Tribe to develop low-rent public housing since the local- federal program began nearly 25 years ago, Public Housing Commissioner Marie C. McGuire announced today.

Interest expressed by this tribe in the early weeks of the Kennedy Administration will shortly lead to the signing of a preliminary loan contract with PHA and the Local Housing Authority established by the Indians.

(WASHINGTON, D.C.) – President Bush has proposed a $2.2 billion budget for the Bureau of Indian Affairs in Fiscal Year 2002 that includes an increase of $65.9 million over the FY2001 appropriation. The increase will strengthen the commitment to replace, maintain and operate Indian schools, reform trust management, and ensure public safety in Indian Country. In addition, the request calls for increases in spending on Indian water and land claims settlements.

The Assistant Secretary— Indian Affairs has made a final determination to acquire 44.10 acres, more or less, into trust for the Jamestown S’Klallam Tribe. The Assistant Secretary—Indian Affairs made the final determination on September 1, 2020.

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.

"The approval of these compacts helps bring to a close a long and difficult phase in the implementation of the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act. For twelve years the Tribal governments of California have diligently moved forward, through some extremely difficult and trying times to secure their rights of self-determination through Tribal government gaming. Today, they have redeemed their rights.

"The resolution of this issue demonstrates that the political process works when people of foresight, and good will resolve themselves to finding a solution.

Many Tribes conduct frequent vegetation treatments in and around their communities as a means of protecting their homes, resources and other values from the damaging effects of wildfires. For scientists wishing to prove the effectiveness of these treatments, collecting documentation can be difficult. This is because ecologists can only evaluate treatments after a randomly occurring wildfire burns the treated area. New developments in the Department of the Interior Fire Treatment Effectiveness Model (FTEM) may help overcome this challenge.

Indian children in three Bureau of Indian Affairs schools will be given special education services and assistance next school year with the help of funding by the Office of Education.

Schools in which the programs will be initiated include Wahpeton Indian School, Wahpeton, N.D.; Phoenix Indian School in Phoenix, Ariz. and Intermountain School, Brigham City, Utah.

The three programs are intended to establish guidelines for Similar, future operations in other Bureau schools, where they are applicable.