Past News Items

On Thursday, February 12, 2009, Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar will testify before the Senate Indian Affairs Committee on his views and priorities on American Indian issues. The full committee hearing is scheduled to begin at 9:30 a.m. in the Dirksen Senate Office Building, Room SD 628.

Who: Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar

What: Secretary Salazar’s testimony before the Senate Indian Affairs Committee

When: 9:30 a.m. Thursday, Feb. 12, 2009

Commissioner of Indian Affairs Morris Thompson announced today that John J. Pereau, a Sioux Indian from the Fort Peck Reservation, has been appointed Superintendent of the Bureau of Indian Affairs' Crow Creek Agency in South Dakota. Pereau, Economic Development Officer at the agency, has been functioning as the Acting Superintendent since April of this year.

WASHINGTON – Assistant Secretary – Indian Affairs Carl J. Artman today issued a final determination not to acknowledge the petitioner known as the St. Francis/Sokoki Band of Abenakis of Vermont as an Indian tribe. This petitioner, located in Franklin County in northwestern Vermont, has 1,171 members with enrollment files completed to the petitioner’s satisfaction.

Commissioner of Indian Affairs Morris Thompson today announced the appointment of Frankie E. Paul, 40, full blood Navajo, to be superintendent Tuba City Agency, Arizona. He has been acting in that capacity since April of this year.

Paul, born and raised in Ramah, New Mexico, is a graduate of Los Angeles State College with a B.A. degree in Education Administration.

WASHINGTON - Assistant Secretary - Indian Affairs Carl J. Artman today announced the departure of Michael D. Olsen, currently the Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary - Indian Affairs, who is going to work for the Assistant Secretary for Land and Minerals Management in the Department of the Interior where he will assume the position of Deputy Assistant Secretary for Land and Minerals Management. Artman also announced that effective Monday, April 2, 2007, George T.

Commissioner of Indian Affairs Morris Thompson today announced that a $1.1 million contract for grading and surfacing about 13.55 miles of road on the Yakima Indian Reservation, Washington State, has been let to Materne Bros. Company, Spokane.

The proposed work will take place about a mile southwest of White Swan, Washington, on Signal Peak Road. Thee road provides access to such popular recreational areas as Lincoln Plateau, Klikitat River, and Mount Adams.

WASHINGTON – Associate Deputy Secretary James E. Cason announced that the Department of the Interior declined to acknowledge the Schaghticoke Tribal Nation as an Indian tribe within the meaning of Federal law. This Reconsidered Final Determination concluded that the Schaghticoke Tribal Nation did not meet two of the seven mandatory requirements for Federal acknowledgment under 25 CFR Part 83, and therefore, the Department declines to acknowledge a government-to-government relationship between the United States and the Schaghticoke Tribal Nation.

Commissioner of Indian Affairs Morris Thompson announced today the appointment of Daniel D. McDonald, 46, to be Director of Tribal Resources Development, Bureau of Indian Affairs, Washington, D.C. His post is the first of an anticipated five top jobs within the Bureau to be filled.

WASHINGTON – Amy Hall, an early childhood teacher with the Hannahville Indian School Family and Child Education (FACE) program and the 2005 Toyota Family Literacy Teacher of the Year, was honored today at the National Center for Family Literacy’s 14th Annual National Conference on Family Literacy in Louisville, Ky. Hannahville is a Bureau of Indian Affairs funded day school operated by the Hannahville Indian Community, a Potawatomi tribe located in Wilson, Mich.

Regulations governing the enrollment of persons under the amended Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act were published today in the Federal Register, Commissioner of Indian Affairs Morris Thompson announced today.

The Settlement Act was amended by legislation enacted January 2, 1976, which reopened the rolls for a period of one year for those persons who missed the original enrollment deadline of March 30,1973.

Alaska Natives will receive 40 million acres of land and almost one billion dollars under the provisions of the Settlement Act, signed into law December 18,1971.