OPA

A new set of grazing regulations for the huge Navajo Indian Reservation of Arizona, New Mexico and Utah, providing for greater Indian participation in administration and enforcement, was announced today by Acting Secretary of the Interior Clarence A. Davis.

The regulations, which were endorsed by the Navajo Tribal Council last January 27 and formally approved by Acting Secretary Davis April 25, are the culmination of nearly eight years of consultation and discussion between tribal representatives and the Bureau of Indian Affairs. Under their provisions both the Central Grazing Committee of the Tribe and the district grazing committees, composed of Indians democratically selected in each of the Reservation's 16 land management districts, will have a considerable voice in the establishment of individual grazing rights, the issuance and transfer of permits, and similar matters.

Taking in all tribally owned trust land within the Reservation boundaries except Land Management District No, 6 (Hopi), the regulations apply to nearly 14,500,000 acres of range with an established grazing capacity of over 500,000 sheep units. Under the regulations one horse, mule or burro counts as five sheep units; one head of cattle as four; and one goat as one. Stocking of the Navajo range is now approximately at the capacity level.

After careful consideration of a progress report submitted in person recently by T. B. Watters and Eugene G. Favell, management specialists working under Secretarial contract with the Klamath Indian Tribe of Oregon, Assistant Secretary of the Interior Wesley A. D'Ewart today expressed the opinion that amendment of the Klamath Termination Act (Public Law 587 of the 83rd Congress) would be premature at the present time.

"Until the appraisal of Klamath tribal resources is completed and tribal members exercise the option given them by the Act to withdraw from or remain in the Tribe,” Mr. D’Ewart said, "I do not believe it is possible to make an intelligent or well-informed decision on amendment of the statute. Once the appraisal is completed, probably in February 1957, we should be in a much better position than we are today to decide, first, whether any amendments are needed and, secondly, what form the amendments should take if they are required."

Mr. Watters and Mr. Favell, together with their staff forester, Earle C, Wilcox, met with Under Secretary Clarence A. Davis and other officials of the Department and the Indian Bureau for several days beginning May 15. During their visit to Washington they also reported on progress under P. L. 587 to the Senate Interior and Insular Affairs Committee.

Three changes in the Federal regulations governing the leasing of Indian lands for development of minerals other than oil and gas were announced today by Commissioner of Indian Affairs Glenn L. Emmons.

One change, involving the acreage of Indian land which may be leased to any one operator in a single State for development of uranium and associated minerals, removes the previous limitation of 960 acres and permits leasing for such purposes without acreage limitation.

Another modification fixes the annual rental under all mineral leases (except oil and gas) at a flat rate of one dollar per acre per year unless otherwise authorized by the Commissioner of Indian Affairs. This represents an increase in rental since the former regulations provided generally for a sliding scale of 25 cents per acre the first year, 50 cents the second and third years, and one dollar thereafter.

The third amendment affects the development expenditures to be required in leases covering coal or uranium and associated minerals. Under the former regulations the minimum required was an amount which, with the annual rental, would add up to $100 for each 160 acres or fraction thereof. The new regulations require development expenditures which, with the annual rental, will amount to not less than $10 for every acre under lease.

Successful bidders for oil and gas leases on Indian lands will be required to deposit 25 percent of the bonus bid and will be given 30 days to complete the lease under new regulations announced today by Commissioner of Indian Affairs Glenn L. Emmons.

The amended rules also require the successful bidder to remit, within the 30-day period, the balance due on the bonus bid, the first year’s rental, and his share of the costs of advertising. In the event of failure to meet these requirements, the deposit will be forfeited."

The chief significance of the amendments, Commissioner Emmons said, is that they will bring uniformity into a field where there has been considerable diversity of practice. Under the former regulations the general but not uniform practice was to require 20 percent of the bonus bid as an initial deposit and to allow 20 days for completion of the lease.

The new regulations also call for a uniform 30-day period of advertising for Indian oil and gas leases unless a shorter period is authorized by the Commissioner of Indian Affairs. Most advertising in the past has been for 30 days but there have been many local variations in practice.

Percy E. Melis, chief of the Indian Bureau's Branch of Forestry for the past three years, will become area director for the Bureau at Billings, Montana, on June 15, Commissioner Glenn L. Emmons announced today.

George S. Kephart, assistant chief of the Forestry Branch, will succeed Melis as chief.

In his new assignment Mr. Melis replaces John M. Cooper, who retired March 31. He will be responsible for supervising all Bureau activities in Montana and Wyoming. Before becoming forestry chief in 1953, he served for about a year as area forester for the Bureau at Window Rock, Ariz. Prior to that he had 17 years of experience with the United States Forest Service in responsible positions throughout the Western States. He also served for eight years in forestry work with the Indian Bureau in the State of Washington before joining the Forest Service in 1935. Following his graduation in logging engineering from Oregon State College in 1924, he worked three years for the Office of Blister Rust Control at Spokane. He was born at Mist, Oreg., in 1898.

Mr. Kephart, a native of St. Louis, Mo., has been engaged in forestry work for the Indian Bureau since 1934 and held positions at Minneapolis, Minn., Klamath Agency, Oreg., and Spokane, Wash., before coming to the central office in 1944. He is a veteran of World War I and a graduate of Cornell University in forestry. From 1919 to 1934 he held numerous jobs in private business.

Commissioner of Indian Affairs Glenn L. Emmons announced today that he has asked the Solicitor1s Office of the Department of the Interior for advice on questions of law involved in a proposed 25-year oil and gas development contract between the Navajo Indian Tribe and the Delhi-Taylor Oil Corporation of Dallas, Texas.

The proposed contract, which covers about 5,000,000 acres or nearly a third of the entire Navajo Reservation in Arizona, New Mexico and Utah, was recently submitted to Commissioner Emmons by Chairman Paul Jones of the Navajo Tribal Council.

In submitting the matter to the Department's legal staff, Commissioner Emmons raised two questions. The first is whether the contract could be approved under Section 5 of the Navajo Rehabilitation Act of 1950, which is the statutory authorization cited in the document itself. If the answer to this question is negative, the second question raised is whether it could be approved under the Tribal Leasing Act of 1938 which requires competitive bidding for oil and gas leases on Indian tribal lands.

If it is decided that the proposed contract can be approved under authority of existing law, then the Commissioner, in accordance with his responsibilities as trustee for Indian lands, will have to determine administratively whether it is in the best interests of the Navajo Indians to approve it. This decision, of course, will not be made until the legal questions have first been resolved.

Because of competitive interest in their property, two Indians of the Spokane Reservation in Washington have recently been offered a $317,500 bonus for a 15-year mining lease on their 120 acre tract in comparison with an offer of about one-fourth this amount which they wanted to Accept several months ago, Commissioner of Indian Affairs Glenn L. Emmons pointed out today.

The case, he added, emphasizes the significance of the trustee role performed by the Bureau of Indian Affairs and the importance of considering the competitive factor before completing lease arrangements on Indian properties.

Commissioner Emmons' comment was prompted by a bid opening made June 11 at the Colville Indian Agency, Nespelem, Washington. The bids were for mining leases on four allotments of the Spokane Reservation owned by various members of the Boyd family of Indians.

Interest in all of these allotments, especially the one drawing the high bonus offer, has been unusually keen since uranium was discovered on nearby property in the fall of 1954.

All four of the allotments were advertised for bids in June 1955, at the request of the Indian owners. At that time the high bid on the outstanding tract, which is identified as Allotment No. 156, was $167,850, The Indian owners, however, refused to sign a lease with the high bidder and insisted that they be permitted to negotiate with the second high bidder who had offered a bonus of $87,100. This negotiation proposal was presented to the Bureau last January and was rejected in favor of further advertising.

"Because of the competitive interest in the property," Commissioner Emmons explained, "the Bureau of Indian Affairs did not accede to the wishes of the owners in this case. As administrators of the federal trusteeship for Indian property of this kind, we had a clear obligation to act in the best interests of the Indian owners regardless of their own feelings in the matter. We believed strongly that competitive bidding would produce the best results for the Indians and our judgment has obviously been borne out by the results of the recent opening."

Since the Bureau refused to approve a negotiated lease, and the Indians refused to sign with the high bidder, all bids received in June 1955, were eventually rejected and the recent offering was made only after the Indian owners had given the local Indian Bureau superintendent powers-of-attorney to sign a lease on their behalf with the high bidder.

The high bidder on all four allotments was Dawn Mining Company of Portland, Oreg., which also holds leasing rights on the adjoining tribal property where the Midnite Mine is located. Bonuses offered on two of the other allotments were $2,500 each and on the third $17,500.

In addition to the bonuses, the Indian property owners will receive annual rentals of one dollar per acre and royalties on a sliding scale ranging from 10 to 20 percent of the mine value dry ton of the ore received.

Dear Sir or Madam:

In view of the special concern of all persons interested in Indian affairs in the extension of the Indian Claims Commission Act, I am attaching a copy of the Department's most recent report on this important legislation.

Sincerely yours,

June 25, 1956

My dear Senator Murray:

On February 9, 1956, the Senate Subcommittee on Indian Affairs held a hearing on H. R. 5566, a bill "To terminate the existence of the Indian Claims Commission, and for other purposes." The purpose of the hearing was to consider a proposed amendment to the bill that would restrict the present jurisdiction of the Indian Claims Commission with respect to claims that arise out of original Indian title. After the hearing, the Chairman of the Subcommittee asked Mr. H. Rex Lee, Legislative Associate Commissioner, Bureau of Indian Affairs, to obtain the Department’s position on the proposed amendment.

Although we understand the factors which led to suggestion of the proposed amendment, our careful study of it leads us to recommend that it be not enacted for the following reasons:

1. The jurisdiction of the Indian Claims Commission to adjudicate this category of claim has been fully litigated. After an exhaustive review of the issue, which was comprehensively briefed, the Court of Claims decided that Congress intended to give the Indian Claims Commission jurisdiction over this category of claim when it enacted the Indian Claims Commission Act in 1946, and the Supreme Court has declined to review that decision (Otoe and Missouria Tribe v. United States, 2 Ind. Cls. Comm. 335, aff'd. 131 Ct. Cls. 593, cert. den. 350 U.S. 848). The scope of the 1946 Act is therefore settled.
2. Many Indian tribes have incurred considerable expense in preparing their claims based upon original Indian title, and it would be construed by them to be a breach of faith to withdraw at this late date, ten years after the Indian Claims Commission Act was enacted, the jurisdiction of the Commission to adjudicate those claims.
3. Although the sums claimed in the pending claims based upon original Indian title may be several billion dollars, as represented, previous experience clearly indicates actual liability will be only a fraction of the potential liability, and we believe that this consideration should not be the determining factor when considering the most practical method of hearing and disposing of the claims.
4. The purpose of the Indian Claims Commission Act was to end the practice of passing special jurisdictional Acts on a tribe-by-tribe basis, and to provide for a final adjudication of all tribal claims. Claims based upon original Indian title have in the past been the subjects of special legislation, and if the Commission's jurisdiction were limited as now proposed Congress would be urged to return to that old and unsatisfactory system. That system is an expensive and inadequate method of dealing with the subject, and it lacks uniformity.

The Bureau or the Budget has advised us that there is no objection to the submission of this report.

Sincerely yours,

The Bureau of Indian Affairs office of education has become part of a network of 19 innovative school systems across the Nation.

Called ES' 70 (Educational Systems for the 70's), the group consists of school systems that have developed specialties in a variety of fields, above and beyond the standard curricula.

Some systems have set up new ways to teach mathematics; others have developed unique social studies programs, and still others are conducting experimental projects in bi-lingual education.

The purpose of the organization is to set up ideal environments for the teaching of each specialty, to note the most successful techniques, and to be able to pass on the knowledge to other educational systems.

The Bureau's contribution to the network will be a study of an integrated Arts and Academic curriculum, already highly successful at the BIA's Institute of American Indian Arts in Santa Fe, N.M.

In a curriculum unusually rich in art courses, a student who may have become dulled to the excitement of personal accomplishment in his early years can be revitalized through the experience of his creative work, BIA educators believe.

The school's graduates include a novelist and a number of outstanding painters,
graphic artists and sculptors.

While training young Indians, Eskimos and Aleuts in a broad spectrum of the arts, along with formal education, the school works carefully to give the students pride in their ancestry and understanding of their cultural heritage. It teaches how these can become a valuable contribution to the world around them, whether expressed in painting, writing, drama, ceramics or other art fields.

When all teaching information has been assembled and the results tabulated, Bureau educators believe the same principles can be applied to other ethnic groups.

One of the anticipated tangible outcomes is a series of video tapes depicting the Indian arts such as the dance, painting and drama. The tapes then can be used as a unit in the arts curriculum in schools across the Nation.

The school systems involved in ES' 70 include that of the Archdiocese of Chicago, Ill, and public schools in the cities of Baltimore, Md.; Atlanta, Ga.; Bloomfield Hills, Mich.; Boulder, Colo.; Duluth, Minn.; Fort Lauderdale, Fla.; Houston, Texas; Jacksort, Ky.; Mamaroneck, N. Y.; Mineola, N. Y.; Monroe, Mich.; Philadelphia, Pa.; Portland, Ore.; Quincy, Mass.; San Antonio, Texas; San Mateo, Calif.; and Willingboro, N.J.

Indian tribes put up about 28 percent of the total funds available last year for economic advancement in reservation areas, their participation increasing by more than $10.5 million over the 1967 tribal investment, the Bureau of Indian Affairs of the Department of the Interior reported today.

The dollar increase was an indication of increasing tribal initiative and involvement as Indian leadership moves toward greater self-determination.

A total of $92.3 million was put into economic advancement projects by the tribes last year, compared with $81.7 million in 1967.

Total financing by customary lenders also increased last year by $23.6 million, to $207 million from $183.4 million. The customary lenders furnished about 64 percent of the total.

Despite these increases, the Bureau pointed out that lack of capital continued to block Indians from full development and utilization of their resources.

The BIA Annual Credit Report says more legislation is needed "to provide Indians with more adequate credit, and with other tools to enable them to participate more fully in American social, economic, and political life, and to permit them to exercise greater initiative and self-determination."

Financing requirements over the next five years are estimated at $988 million, of which $98. 3 million is needed in 1969, BIA credit and financing officials estimate.

Under current laws, not more than $3 million can be taken care of from the revolving fund. It is estimated that tribes may provide about $14 million.

"The remaining $81.3 million would have to be furnished by customary lenders if the needs of the Indians are to be met," says the report. "It is unlikely that this additional amount can be obtained:"

The Indian credit program is now limited to administration of a revolving fund for loans, funded by appropriations of $25.1 million over a period of 34 years; use of tribal funds for the same purposes as loans made by the United States from the revolving fund; and help in obtaining financing from customary lenders, both governmental and private.

Proposed legislation would authorize incentives to private lenders to encourage them to finance Indian loans.

Total financing for Indians increased from $290.9 million in 1967 to $324.5 million in 1968. The increase was due to tribes using more of their own funds and more financing by customary lenders. Loans from the revolving fund actually showed a small decrease during the year, the total being $25.2 million.