Past News Items

ASSISTANT SECRETARY FOR INDIAN AFFAIRS

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Acting Assistant Secretary – Indian Affairs Donald E. “Del” Laverdure today issued a final determination on a petition for federal acknowledgment, declining to acknowledge the Brothertown Indian Nation (Brothertown) as an Indian tribe under federal law. Brothertown is located in Wisconsin and first submitted its petition in 1980.

Leon V. Langan, assistant to the Commissioner of Indian Affairs, was today designated by Commissioner Glenn L, Emmons to act as his representative in putting into effect the recommendations for reorganization recently made by the survey team which studied the Bureau of Indian Affairs. Mr. Langan will begin this assignment immediately.

Interior Secretary Rogers C. B. Morton has appointed Reid P. Chambers, former Acting Professor of Law at the University of California at Los Angeles, to be Associate Solicitor of the Interior Department for Indian Affairs, effective immediately.

Chambers, 33, has had background.in Federal Indian Law, not only teaching at UCLA and the University of Colorado Law Schools, but also in litigation involving protection of Indian rights and resources.

WASHINGTON – The Bureau of Indian Affairs Office of Justice Services (OJS) will hold the second of six training sessions to improve the trial advocacy skills of tribal court prosecutors, defenders and judges on August 14-16, 2012, in Ignacio, Colo. This training session, which will focus on domestic violence, was originally scheduled to take place in Durango.

Acting Secretary of the Interior Clarence A. Davis today announced the appointment of Roley Buck, Wetumka, Oklahoma, to a two-year term as Principal Chief of the Creek Nation, one of Oklahoma's Five Civilized Tribes.

Chief Buck, a full-blood Creek Indian, has long been active in tribal and church affairs. He is the father of seven children, two of whom are now serving in the United States Army. The new chief himself served in the Army along the Mexican border in 1916 and 1917 and with the infantry in France in 1918.

The Bureau of Indian Affairs jurisdiction for ten Alaskan villages has been transferred from one Bureau agency to another so that the areas served by the agencies will more closely correspond to those of Regional Corporations established under the Alaskan Native Claims Settlement Act, Marvin L Franklin, Assistant to the Secretary of the Interior for Indian Affairs, announced today.

WASHINGTON, DC – Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar today announced that Bureau of Indian Education Director Keith Moore will be leaving his position at the Department of the Interior. Selected by then-Assistant Secretary of Indian Affairs Larry Echo Hawk, Director Moore led the nation’s only federal education system for American Indian and Alaska Native students and implemented President Obama’s national initiatives for educational advancement in Indian Country.

This joint meeting of officials of the Department of Interior's Bureau of Indian Affairs and the Public Health Service of the Department of Health, Educations and Welfare will begin at 9:30 A.M., May 16, at the Shirley-Savoy Hotel. The conference was called for the purpose of advancing the orderly transfer of the Indian Health Program from the Bureau of Indian Affairs to the Public Health Service in accordance with Public Law 568, 83rd Congress. This transfer of responsibility becomes effective July 1, 1955.

Secretary of the Interior Rogers C. B. Morton has appointed William L. Rogers as his Special Assistant for the 10 - state Missouri Basin Region, with headquarters in the Denver Federal Center. The post has been vacant and the appointment is effective immediately.

Rogers, 52, is a professional engineer who joined Interior in June, 1970, to serve as Deputy Under Secretary. He has handled a variety of top-level assignments in the Department, serving most recently as Deputy Assistant Secretary for Indian Affairs.