Past News Items

David J. Matheson, an enrolled member of the Coeur d'Alene Indian Tribe of Plummer, Idaho, and its former chairman, has been named Director of the Office of Construction Management in the Department of the Interior.

(WASHINGTON, D.C.) – The Department of the Interior will hold a signing ceremony tomorrow for a $100 million contract between GovWorks, the Department’s Minerals Management Service (MMS) franchise fund, and Wyandotte NetTel, an American Indian telecommunications and information technology firm owned by the Wyandotte Nation in Wyandotte, Okla. Wyandotte NetTel will provide telecom and information technology products and services to the federal government.

Extensive investigations by the Bureau of Indian ·Affairs (BIA) have exonerated Kenneth Whitehorn, former BIA agency superintendent for education on the Tohono O'odham reservation, of allegations he had prior knowledge that an employee he hired had been involved in a child abuse case in Arizona.

Secretary of the Interior Manuel Lujan today announced that effective December 17, William D. Bettenberg, a 26-year Department employee, has been appointed Deputy Assistant Secretary of Indian Affairs.

Bettenberg served for almost five years as Director of Interior's Minerals Management Service (MMS) and as MMS associate director for Offshore Minerals Management. In March of 1990, he was named as a special assistant to Lujan.

Secretary of the Interior Manuel Lujan today announced the appointment of six private citizens as members of the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Review Committee "The committee faces a challenging set or tasks," Lujan said in making the appointments. "Among their duties, they must advise me on regulations needed to implement the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act of 1990, and they will assist in the resolution of disputes caused by its requirements. This will require careful reading of the law and a willingness to listen to each side of an issue."

Secretary of the Interior Manuel Lujan today directed implementation of short-term and long-range plans-to improve regulation of gaming on Indian reservations

Secretary of the Interior Manuel Lujan today announced that the Department's Fiscal Year 1993 $8.6 billion budget continues the President's commitment to enhancing our Nation's human, natural, historical and cultural resources while generating employment and economic opportunities.

Interior's Assistant Secretary for Indian Affairs Eddie F. Brown said today the President's fiscal year 1993 Budget of $1.88 billion for the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) will continue to strengthen the foundation established last year by President Bush and Interior Secretary Lujan to reform the delivery of key social, financial, and natural resource programs to American Indians.

Forty-three Indian tribal leaders and officials of the Department of the Interior (DOI) and Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) will meet January 27-29 at Washington, D.C.'s Dulles Airport to finalize a report to the Secretary of the Interior on the reorganization of the BIA.

Notices to vacate the premises within 10 days will be sent on April 15, 1992, to persons without valid leases on spaces in the Havasu Landing Mobile home Park on the Chemehuevi Indian reservation in California

The Department of the Interior's Field Solicitor in Phoenix reported today that approximately 400 people have not signed valid leases. Those who do not reach agreement with the tribe before April 15 will receive the notices.