Past News Items

Secretary of the Interior Rogers C. B. Morton today announced approval of revised regulations governing mining exploratory and development operations conducted on Federal and Indian lands under permits and leases issued by the Department of the Interior.

The regulations are not new, Secretary Morton pointed out, but rather are the existing reorganized and clarified regulations. (The revised regulations will be published June 1, 1972 in the Federal Register and will become effective 30 days thereafter.)

The Department of the Interior has issued an administrative order restoring to the San Carlos Apache Tribe full ownership of, approximately 200,000 acres of land known as the "mineral strip," ceded to the Government in 1896.

The land, lying along the southern border of the tribe's Arizona reservation, was ceded by the tribe with the understanding that the Government would supervise mineral recovery on the lands and return all mineral revenues to the tribe.

WASHINGTON, D.C. – On Thursday, May 15, Deputy Secretary of the Interior Michael Connor will hold a news media teleconference to discuss the schedule for the continued implementation of the Land Buy-Back Program for Tribal Nations (Buy-Back Program) through the end of calendar year 2015. Connor will be joined by Assistant Secretary-Indian Affairs Kevin K. Washburn.

Final regulations for preparing aro11 ofA1askaNativeseligib1e to share in the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act of December 18, 1971, were issued today by the Assistant Secretary of the Interior Harrison Loesch.

(The regulations are scheduled to appear in the Federal Register March 17, 1972.)

The Native Claims Act provides for settlement of awards totaling $962.5 million and 40 million acres of land, and ends a struggle which has been pending since the United States purchased Alaska from Russia in 1867, according to Louis R. Bruce, Commissioner of Indian Affairs.

The Department of the Interior today announced the award of a $499,557 contract for construction of an eight-mile section of Navajo Route 8 in the northeastern Arizona part of the Navajo Indian Reservation.

The new stretch of Navajo 8 will link the reservation towns of Ganado and Klagetoh in Apache County with an all-weather, paved highway. The towns are located a few miles south of Canyon de Chelly National Monument, near the Petrified Forest area, a popular tourist locale.

WASHINGTON, DC – The Department of the Interior today announced that quarterly transfers of funds to the Cobell Education Scholarship Fund are set to begin this week with a first transfer of nearly $580,000 to the American Indian College Fund. The Scholarship Fund was authorized by the historic Cobell Settlement, approved in November 2012, to provide financial assistance through annual scholarships to American Indian and Alaska Native students wishing to pursue post-secondary education and training.

William H. Crowe, a Cherokee designer-craftsman of international repute, has been named to a four-year term as Commissioner on the five-man Indian Arts and Crafts Board, Secretary of the Interior Robert C. B. Morton announced today.

Crowe succeeds Vincent Price, actor and patron of the arts, whose Commissionership on the Arts and Crafts Board expired last July. The Board was established in 1935 to encourage the preservation and development of American Indian and Eskimo artistry.

SPECIAL PROJECTS READY INDIANS FOR VOCATIONAL TRAINING AND EMPLOYMENT

Two promising projects involving pre-vocational training for Indian men and women are being undertaken through the joint efforts of the Interior Department's Bureau of Indian Affairs, the Department of Labor, and State education and employment assistance agencies in Washington, Arizona, and Texas.

WASHINGTON, DC – Assistant Secretary – Indian Affairs Kevin K. Washburn today issued proposed findings for two petitioners under the Federal Acknowledgment Process. The decisions include a proposed finding to acknowledge the petitioner known as the Pamunkey Indian Tribe (Petitioner #323) as a federally recognized Indian Tribe, and a proposed finding to decline acknowledgment for the petitioner known as the Meherrin Indian Tribe of North Carolina (Petitioner #119b).

Jess T. Town, 39, Choctaw Indian from Talihina, Okla., was today named Superintendent of the Rosebud Agency, Rosebud, His appointment is effective August 8. Town will move to this post from one as Area Field Representative of the Bureau in Riverside, Calif.

Town was graduated from Chilocco Indian School in Oklahoma in May 1950, and attended Phoenix College, Phoenix, Ariz. He began his Federal service in the Phoenix Indian School in 1954.