OPA

WASHINGTON – Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) Director W. Patrick Ragsdale toured the Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians Reservation yesterday to view the damage wrought by Hurricane Katrina and to meet with Choctaw Chief Phillip Martin and tribal officials on the Bureau’s continuing relief efforts in the area. He was accompanied by Franklin Keel, Regional Director of the BIA’s Eastern Regional Office in Nashville, Tenn., and Special Agent David Nicholas, Commander of the BIA’s Office of Law Enforcement Services (OLES) District VI, which includes the Mississippi Choctaw Tribe, who have been coordinating the Bureau’s response to the federally recognized tribes impacted by the powerful storm.

“The impact of Hurricane Katrina on the Mississippi Choctaw Tribe and surrounding communities has been tremendous,” Ragsdale said. “We are working with Chief Martin and the Mississippi Choctaw tribal government to assist their recovery from this natural disaster.”

The hurricane’s eye passed directly over the city of Philadelphia, Miss., where the BIA’s Choctaw Agency is located. Winds estimated at 100 to 120 miles per hour knocked out power to homes and businesses, felled trees, and damaged roofs in each of the tribe’s eight communities. The hardest hit appeared to be Bogue Homa, the southernmost Choctaw community where several homes were left with structural damage and 200 families needing assistance. At least 300 acres of the tribe’s forest lands suffered damage when the high winds uprooted hardwood and pine trees, some as large as 24 inches in diameter.

The OLES deployed police officers to the Choctaw Reservation where they arrived shortly after midnight on August 29 with a Mobile Command Vehicle (MCV) to assist the Mississippi Choctaw Tribal Police Department and to support local relief efforts. The OLES also has coordinated law enforcement personnel sent by the Seminole Tribe of Florida, the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma, the Miccosukee Tribe of Florida, the Fort McDowell Yavapai Nation of Arizona, and the Tohono O’odham Nation of Arizona to assist the Mississippi Choctaw Tribe. Almost 80 BIA and tribal officers have participated in the ongoing relief effort.

In addition to working with tribal officials, BIA personnel have been working with Federal and State emergency management agencies to provide assistance to non-Indian communities in the region.

While the Mississippi Choctaw Tribe administers the BIA’s General Assistance Program for tribal members living on the reservation, the Bureau is working with the tribe to determine how much additional funding it may need to continue providing such assistance.

This is the seventh hurricane mobilization undertaken by the BIA’s Eastern Regional Office, which serves the federally recognized tribes in the Gulf Coast states of Alabama, Florida, Louisiana and Mississippi, as well as in the states of Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New York, Rhode Island and North and South Carolina. While keeping an eye on the hurricane’s progress, the regional office maintained communication with Mississippi Choctaw tribal officials. Once the tribe made its request for assistance, the BIA dispatched its MCV from Florida to Choctaw, Miss., where the tribe is headquartered, to become its Mobile Command Center. “BIA personnel were already underway when Katrina made landfall in Mississippi,” said Keel.

Shortly after arriving on August 29 law enforcement personnel began going house-to-house to check on residents and provide aid. The BIA also has been working with businesses who are contributing to the relief effort, such as Tractor Supply Company of Nashville which donated much-needed dog food and cattle feed to the affected areas.

“I am extremely proud of how quickly BIA employees and tribal leaders moved to aid the victims of Hurricane Katrina,” Ragsdale said. “The morale of our personnel on the ground is very high.”

The BIA will continue to provide relief assistance until the tribe is able to move into its recovery phase when power is fully restored to its communities, road conditions improve, and damage assessments and home repairs can be made. The tribe’s eight BIA-funded schools suffered minimal effects from the storm. The Bureau’s Office of Indian Education Programs (OIEP), which oversees the BIA school system, will replace spoiled food supplies. The schools are expected to reopen within the next few days.

WASHINGTON – Interior Associate Deputy Secretary James E. Cason will appear October 7 at the National Indian Education Association’s (NIEA) 36th Annual Convention in Denver, Colo., where he will speak on Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) Indian education programs and policy. The NIEA convention is the largest annual convocation of American Indian, Alaska Native and Native Hawaiian educators in the United States.

Topics he will address include the proposed restructuring of the Office of Indian Education Programs (OIEP) and the national search for a new OIEP Director, implementation of the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 in the BIA-funded schools, and the continuing success of the Bureau’s Family and Child Education Program (FACE) in strengthening the school readiness skills of young learners.

In School Year 2003-04, the BIA school system served over 45,000 American Indian children in 184 elementary and secondary day and boarding schools located on or near 63 reservations in 23 states. One-third are BIA-operated schools; the remaining two-thirds are tribally operated under BIA contracts or grants.

WHO: James E. Cason, Associate Deputy Secretary, U.S. Department of the Interior.

WHAT: Associate Deputy Secretary Cason will speak on BIA Indian education programs and policy at the National Indian Education Association’s 36th Annual Convention.

WHEN: 10:00 a.m. (local time) on Friday, October 7, 2005.

WHERE: Colorado Convention Center, Ballroom 5-8, 700 14th Street, Denver, Colo.

CREDENTIALS: This invitation is extended to working media representatives, who are required to display sanctioned media credentials for admittance to the event.

WASHINGTON – Associate Deputy Secretary James E. Cason today announced that the Department of the Interior declined to acknowledge that the groups known as the Eastern Pequot Indians of Connecticut (EP) and the Paucatuck Eastern Pequot Indians of Connecticut (PEP) are Indian tribes within the meaning of Federal law. The Reconsidered Final Determination concluded that the Eastern Pequot Indians of Connecticut and the Paucatuck Eastern Indians Pequot of Connecticut did not meet two of seven mandatory requirements for Federal acknowledgment under 25 CFR Part 83, and therefore, did not meet the requirements for acknowledging a government-to-government relationship with the United States.

This decision reversed the June 24, 2002, Final Determinations to acknowledge the two petitioners, EP and PEP, as one group, known as the Historical Eastern Pequot Tribe. The State of Connecticut, the towns of Ledyard, North Stonington, and Preston, Connecticut, and a group known as the Wiquapaug Eastern Pequot Tribe challenged the Final Determinations before the Interior Board of Indian Appeals.

On May 12, 2005, the Interior Board of Indian Appeals vacated and remanded the Final Determinations to the Assistant Secretary - Indian Affairs for reconsideration, rejecting the use of state recognition of the Historical Eastern Pequot Tribe as evidence for criterion 83.7(b) “community” and 83.7(c) “political authority and influence” as defined in the regulations under 83.1. In response to the decision of the Interior Board of Indian Appeals, the Department reevaluated the specific state relationship with the Eastern Pequot to determine if it provided evidence of social interaction or political influence within the Eastern Pequot.

The reconsidered Final Determination found that the petitioners did not meet criterion 83.7(b), because of the division of the historical Eastern Pequot into two groups in the early 1980s. The two separate communities after the early 1980s are not the same community that existed before that time. Neither petitioner represented the entire Eastern Pequot group. The petitioners also did not meet criterion 83.7(c), because there was insufficient evidence of political authority or influence for the period 1913-1973. Also, since the division in 1983, the two groups did not meet criterion 83.7(c).

The Reconsidered Final Determination is final and effective for the Department of the Interior upon the date of publication of a notice, in the Federal Register, pursuant to 25 CFR § 83.11(h)(3).

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.

On February 5, 2004, the Department of the Interior published in the Federal Register, a notice of the Final Determination to acknowledge the Schaghticoke Tribal Nation. The State of Connecticut, the Kent School Corp., Connecticut Light & Power Company, the towns of Kent, Danbury, Bethel, New Fairfield, Newton, Ridgefield, Stamford, Greenwich, Sherman, Westport, Wilton, Weston, and the Housatonic Valley Council of Elected Officials, the Cogswell family group, and a group known as the Schaghticoke Indian Tribe challenged that decision before the Interior Board of Indian Appeals.

On May 12, 2005, the Interior Board of Indian Appeals vacated and remanded the Final Determination to the Assistant Secretary - Indian Affairs for reconsideration. The Interior Board of Indian Appeals rejected the general use of state recognition in the Final Determination as evidence for criterion 83.7(b) “community” and 83.7(c) “political influence or authority.” In response, the Department reevaluated the specific relationship between the State of Connecticut and the Schaghticoke Tribal Nation to determine if it provided evidence of social interaction or political influence within the Schaghticoke Tribal Nation. The conclusion of the reevaluation is that it did not provide such evidence.

Under criterion 83.7(b), community, the petitioner provided sufficient evidence from colonial times to 1920 and 1967 to 1996. The petitioner did not meet criterion 83.7(b), because there was insufficient evidence for the periods 1920-1967 and 1997 to the present. Under criterion 83.7(c), political authority or influence, the petitioner provided sufficient evidence from historical times to 1801. The petitioner did not meet criterion 83.7(c), because there was insufficient evidence for the periods 1801-1875, 1885-1967, and 1997 to the present. The Schaghticoke Tribal Nation petitioner failed these criteria from 1997 to the present because numerous Schaghticoke Indians refused to be members of the Schaghticoke Tribal Nation.

This Reconsidered Final Determination is final and effective for the Department of the Interior upon the date of publication of a notice in the Federal Register, pursuant to 25 CFR § 83.11(h)(3).

WASHINGTON – The U.S. Department of the Interior, Indian Affairs announces the Indian Energy Opportunity Roundtable: Tribes, Companies and Government Explore Oil and Gas Possibilities. The half-day event, which will be held in Denver, CO on October 18, 2005, is cosponsored by the Department’s Office of Indian Energy and Economic Development and the Domestic Petroleum Council. The Roundtable is being held to gather all interested stakeholders to discuss the development of the vast energy resources owned by American Indian tribes. It is estimated that 37 trillion cubic feet of natural gas and 5 billion barrels of oil lie under tribal lands.

“We look forward to gathering together to discuss the possibilities of collaborations that will be good for the tribes and good for America,” said Bob Middleton, Director, Office of Indian Energy and Economic Development. “Our Trust responsibility for natural resources is one of the most critical functions performed by the Federal government in fulfilling the treaties and other agreements established with American Indian tribes.”

The event will bring together private, public and tribal entities to discuss the opportunities tribes have for developing their oil and gas reserves. Some of the featured speakers include the following: Nicholas Sinatra, Deputy Associate Director, Intergovernmental Affairs, The White House; Stephen Manydeeds, Division Chief, Division of Energy and Mineral Resources, Department of the Interior; Willam J. Barret, Chairman and CEO of Bill Barrett Corporation; Bruce Valdez, Executive Director, Southern Ute Indian Tribe Growth Fund; and Jim Abercrombie, Senior Vice President, Onshore West Operations, Dominion Exploration and Production.

Speakers will address several topics, including: A View from the White House; The Resource Potential in Indian Country, Successful Indian Energy Development, and Energy Business Models: Indian Country Legal and Tax Considerations. Those presentations will be followed by a roundtable discussion featuring various leaders in the area of energy exploration and development from private, public and tribal entities.

The Office of Indian Energy and Economic Development was created by the Department of the Interior to act as its lead office to assist tribes and individuals with the exploration, development and management of energy resources found on their lands. The Domestic Petroleum Council is the largest association of independent natural gas and oil exploration and development companies in the United States.

What: Indian Energy Opportunity Roundtable: Tribes, Companies and Governments Explore Oil and Gas Possibilities

When: October 18, 2005 1:00 p.m. – 5:30 p.m. with a reception to follow

Where: Grand Hyatt Denver, CO 1750 Welton Street Denver, CO

CREDENTIALS: This invitation is extended to working media representatives, who are required to display sanctioned media credentials for admittance to the event.

WASHINGTON – Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) Director W. Patrick Ragsdale today announced that BIA Special Agent Leonard Merriam, an enrolled member of the Sault Ste. Marie Tribe of Chippewa Indians of Michigan, is now a graduate of the Federal Bureau of Investigation National Academy (FBINA). Merriam, who works in the Bureau’s Office of Law Enforcement Services (OLES) in Washington, D.C., joins a select group of BIA law enforcement officers who are also graduates of the Academy. The graduation ceremony took place on September 16 at the FBINA campus in Quantico, Va.

“I congratulate BIA Special Agent Leonard Merriam upon his graduation from the FBI National Academy,” Ragsdale said. “The Bureau of Indian Affairs can be proud to add him to its complement of officers who have completed this rigorous training program.”

Christopher B. Chaney, OLES Deputy Bureau Director, noted that Merriam is the seventh current BIA law enforcement employee to have successfully completed FBINA training. “Special Agent Merriam’s accomplishment is a rare honor, and reflects the high quality personnel we have in the Office of Law Enforcement Services,” Chaney said.

Merriam was among the 247 law enforcement officers from 48 states, the District of Columbia, 21 international countries, four military organizations, and four Federal civilian organizations who comprised the 222nd session of the National Academy. The 10-week program provides students with advanced investigative, management and fitness training by FBI Academy instructional staff, Special Agents and internationally recognized law enforcement experts.

“The training at the FBI National Academy was among the most academically and physically demanding that I have ever received,” Merriam said. “I am pleased to be able to apply what I have learned to my work in BIA law enforcement.”

Special Agent Merriam was born in Ann Arbor, Mich. After graduating from Dexter High School, he attended Lake Superior State University in Sault Ste. Marie where he majored in Criminal Justice with a minor in Corrections. During this period, he interned as a conservation officer with the Bureau’s Michigan Agency in Sault Ste. Marie. In addition, his family’s tradition of working as tribal commercial fishermen, which he also did to help pay for his education, sparked his interest in Conservation Law Enforcement.

In 1995, after graduating with a Bachelors of Science degree in Criminal Justice and Conservation Law Enforcement, Merriam served his tribe as a police officer until 1997 when he joined the Sault Ste. Marie city police force. In November 1999, Merriam became a Special Agent with the Michigan Agency, where he worked until January 2003, when he transferred to the OLES headquarters office in D.C.

The Office of Law Enforcement and Security carries out its mission to improve law enforcement services and preserve public safety in Indian country through six district offices and by supporting, through funding and/or training, over 170 tribally operated police departments and directly operating 31 police departments, as well as funding 59 tribally operated detention facilities and directly operating 22 detention facilities, across the country, by coordinating homeland security support on Federal Indian lands, and by providing training and professional development through the Indian Police Academy in Artesia, N.M.

WASHINGTON – Associate Deputy Secretary James E. Cason announced today that the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) Eastern Regional Office in Nashville, Tenn., has approved under 25 CFR 151 a request by local officials of Madison County and Oneida County in the state of New York to extend the comment period for state and local governments on a land-into-trust application from the Oneida Indian Nation. The Bureau granted a 60-day extension of time to submit comments on the tribe’s application which is comprised of three groups of land parcels.

After the BIA had received the Oneida Indian Nation’s request on September 20, 2005, and in accordance with 25 CFR 151.10, the Eastern Regional Office provided notification to state and local governments having regulatory jurisdiction over the land of their opportunity to provide written comments within a 30-day timeframe as to the acquisition’s potential impact on their regulatory jurisdiction, real property taxes and special assessments.

The original comment periods on Group 1 and Group 2 lands ran from September 26 to October 26, 2005, and from November 1 to November 30, 2005, respectively. The BIA notice further specified that an extension of 10 to 30 days in which to submit comments may be granted provided written justification was received within the initial comment period.

The BIA has granted Madison County and Oneida County officials a 60-day extension of time to submit comments on the acquisition of Group 1 and Group 2 lands until the close of business on December 27, 2005, and January 29, 2006, respectively. The BIA also will soon provide formal notice of the extension of the comment period for Group 3 lands from November 1 until the close of business on March 1, 2006.

On April 5, 2005, the Oneida Indian Nation submitted to the BIA Eastern Regional Office their request for the fee-to-trust transfer of restricted lands within the Oneida Reservation totaling 17,193 acres in the two counties. The request was the result of the March 29, 2005, United States Supreme Court decision in City of Sherrill v. Oneida Indian Nation wherein the Court noted that the tribe had an available procedure under 25 USC 465 and 25 CFR 151 for acquiring land into trust that takes into account local jurisdictional concerns.

WASHINGTON – Interior Associate Deputy Secretary James E. Cason will appear November 1 at the National Congress of American Indians (NCAI) 62nd Annual Convention in Tulsa, Okla. The NCAI convention is the oldest and largest annual meeting of American Indian and Alaska Native tribal leaders held in the United States.

Cason will discuss Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) programs and policy initiatives including trust reform, the proposed restructuring of the Office of Indian Education Programs (OIEP), the national search for a new OIEP Director and the implementation of the No Child Left Behind Act in BIA-funded schools, and the Bureau’s Fiscal Year 2006 budget outlook.

WHO: James E. Cason, Associate Deputy Secretary, U.S. Department of the Interior.

WHAT: Associate Deputy Secretary Cason will speak on BIA programs and policy at the National Congress of American Indians (NCAI) 62nd Annual Convention.

WHEN: 11:00 a.m. (local time) on Tuesday, November 1, 2005.

WHERE: Tulsa Convention Center, Hall C, 100 Civic Center, Tulsa, Okla. Phone: (918) 596-7177.

CREDENTIALS: This invitation is extended to working media representatives, who are required to display sanctioned media credentials for admittance to the event.

WASHINGTON – Associate Deputy Secretary James E. Cason today announced that the Department of the Interior has declined to acknowledge that a group known as the St. Francis/Sokoki Band of Abenaki located in and around Swanton, Vt., is an Indian tribe within the meaning of Federal law. The petitioning group did not demonstrate that it meets all seven mandatory criteria for Federal acknowledgment as an Indian tribe under Part 83 of Title 25 of the United States Code of Federal Regulations (25 CFR Part 83), “Procedures for Establishing that an American Indian Group Exists as an Indian Tribe.”

The purpose of 25 CFR Part 83 is to provide a means to acknowledge Indian tribes that have continuous social and political existence and to determine whether the group descends from a historical Indian tribe or tribes. Federal acknowledgment of a group as an Indian tribe establishes a government-to-government relationship between the United States and an Indian tribe and is a prerequisite for the offering of services by the Department’s Bureau of Indian Affairs to Indian tribes.

The petitioning group did not meet criteria 83.7(a), (b), (c) and (e) of the acknowledgment regulations. Under criterion 83.7(a), the petitioner did not demonstrate that it was identified as an Indian entity on a “substantially continuous” basis for 75 years, from 1900 to 1975. The evidence in the record revealed that the petitioner has been identified on a substantially continuous basis only since it formed its organization in the mid-1970s. Under criterion 83.7(b), the petitioner did not demonstrate that “a predominant portion of the petitioning group comprised a distinct community” on a substantially continuous basis from first sustained contact with non-Indians to the present. Under criterion 83.7(c), the petitioner did not demonstrate that it had maintained “political influence or authority” over its members as an autonomous entity from first sustained contact with non-Indians to the present. Under criterion 83.7(e), the petitioner did not demonstrate that its membership consisted of individuals who descended from a historical Indian tribe or tribes that combined and functioned as a single autonomous political entity.

The record further revealed that the petitioner is not the same as the historical Western Abenaki tribe that was recorded in the Missisquoi River area during the Colonial era. This group eventually retreated north across the border to Canada, where they were joined by a number of refugee Indians from the various Colonial wars. These Indians were eventually incorporated into the larger Abenaki group, which eventually settled on the St. Francis (also called “Odanak”) Reservation near Pierreville, Quebec, in Canada.

The petitioning group did meet criteria 83.7(d), (f), and (g) of the acknowledgment regulations by demonstrating that it has a governing document, that its membership is not principally composed of members of an acknowledged North American Indian tribe, and that neither the petitioner nor its members are the subject of congressional legislation that has expressly terminated or forbidden the Federal relationship.

The Notice of Proposed Finding on the St. Francis/Sokoki Band of Abenaki of Vermont will be published in the Federal Register. As provided by 25 CFR Part 83.10(i), the petitioner or any individual or organization wishing to challenge or support the proposed finding shall have 180 days after the notice’s publication date to submit arguments and evidence to rebut or support the proposed finding before any final determination is issued.

PALA, Calif. – During a visit to the Pala Indian Reservation in Southern California today, Interior Associate Deputy Secretary James E. Cason announced that the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) has completed the transfer of 18 acres of land from a former United States Air Force base located near the City of San Bernadino, Calif., to the San Manuel Band of Mission Indians, a federally recognized Serrano tribe headquartered in Patton, Calif. Cason was in attendance at a signing ceremony for the final transaction in a process that has returned to the San Manuel tribe lands that were a part of its ancestral land base. He was joined at the event by San Manuel Vice Chairman Henry Duro, San Manuel tribal officials and other officials from the Department of the Interior.

“I congratulate the United States Air Force, the Bureau of Indian Affairs and the San Manuel Band of Mission Indians for their hard work and determination,” Cason said. “Through consultation, cooperation and communication, they have effectively brought the long and complicated process of transferring these surplus Federal lands to a successful conclusion.”

The area where the 200-member San Manuel tribe is located is known as the Inland Empire. Although home to the Serrano people for centuries, the region’s non-Indian population came first from Spain, then Mexico. In January 1891, Congress authorized the establishment of a 25-acre reservation for the tribe located at the base of McKinley Mountain in the San Bernadino Mountain Range. A major geological feature of the San Manuel Reservation is the web of fault lines that runs through it, including the San Andreas Fault which extends under the tribe’s administrative offices. The new land is better suited for the tribe’s needs and will support its efforts to contribute to the local economy.

“This is a joyous day for the San Manuel people,” Duro said. “We have waited a long time to reclaim these parts of our ancestral lands so that we can develop our tribal economy and participate in the revitalization of the Inland Empire region.”

Today’s ceremony capped a process that started 10 years ago when the San Manuel tribe sought to acquire portions of the Norton Air Force Base after its closing in 1994. The Air Force agreed to a no-cost transfer of three parcels of the surplus Federal property, which includes the Air Combat Camera facility and other, smaller buildings, for the tribe’s benefit in accordance with the Federal Property and Administrative Services Act of 1949.

Although the parcels received a waiver of fair market value, the transaction has not been without cost to the tribe. The tribe has already renovated one building, using it as a training facility for tribal and local fire and safety personnel, but the Air Combat Camera facility will require significant investment to render it useable. The lands are being transferred through the BIA under the authority of the Indian Self-Determination and Education Assistance Act of 1975.