Past News Items

The White House Conference on Indian Education will take place January 22-24 at the Ramada Renaissance at Techworld, 999 9th St., N.W., Washington, D.C.

Ada E. Deer, Assistant Secretary for Indian Affairs announces the dedication of a new Jr/Sr High School at Fort Hall, Idaho for the Shoshone-Bannock. Federal, state and tribal agencies worked cooperatively to provide funding for the construction of this new school. The school is designed in traditional motif and is considered one of the most beautiful educational facilities in the State of Idaho. The facility will offer state-of-the-art equipment, resources, and instruction for the Fort Hall Indian Community.

The Department of the Interior has presented to Congress an initial report that outlines proposed legislative settlement options for resolving disputed balances in Tribal trust accounts. The report and recommendations are in response to a five-year study by a national accounting firm which examined billions of dollars in Tribal trust fund transactions handled by the Bureau of Indian Affairs for a 20-year period beginning in 1972.

The Quileute Tribe of LaPush, Washington, today became the first federally recognized tribal nation to contract with the Federal Telecommunications Service to receive low rates and reliable service for voice, data, and video transmission service.

Ada E. Deer announced today that a settlement has been reached in a lawsuit filed on behalf of the Sac and Fox Nation of Oklahoma (the Nation) by the federal government. "This settlement will bring to a conclusion almost five (5) decades of dispute over the issue of pollution, caused by oil and gas drilling, of groundwater used by the Nation," Ms. Deer said.

A $9.1-million contract has been awarded by the Bureau of Indian Affairs to the Ute Mountain Ute Tribe for a much-needed adult and juvenile detention center that will be constructed by the tribe's Weeminuche Construction Authority.

The Bureau of Indian Affairs' Housing Improvement Program (HIP), which provides a safety net for needy American Indian families who do not qualify for assistance from other housing programs, is streamlining its procedures to ensure that those with greatest need will receive safe, sound, and sanitary housing more quickly.

"We look forward to enacting these new procedures because they will speed the delivery of decent housing to the neediest tribal members," said Assistant Secretary for Indian Affairs Kevin Gover.

Interior Department representatives today strongly defended the rights of American Indian tribes to tribal self-determination. "Centuries of tribal rights of self-government and self-determination should under no circumstance be abridged based on mere anecdotal evidence," said Interior Department Associate Solicitor for Indian Affairs Derril Jordan today during a Senate Committee on Indian Affairs hearing on Tribal Sovereign Immunity.

Assistant Secretary for Indian Affairs Kevin Gover spoke Thursday, March 19, about critical American Indian issues and his vision for Tribal America during a University of South Dakota School of Law symposium on "Indian Nations on the Eve of 21st Century: Sovereignty, Self-Government, Water Rights, Land Rights." The speech was taped by C-SPAN for later broadcast.

Assistant Secretary for Indian Affairs Kevin Gover, a Lawton native and a Pawnee tribal member, is returning to his home state to speak about critical American Indian issues and his vision for Tribal America during a University of Oklahoma American Indian Law and Policy Symposium on Saturday, March 21. The symposium, sponsored by the American Indian Law Review editors and the University of Oklahoma College of Law, commemorates the 25th anniversary of the American Indian Law Review.