OPA

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Acting Assistant Secretary – Indian Affairs Aurene M. Martin and Special Trustee for American Indians Ross O. Swimmer today announced the issuance of a new Departmental Manual (DM) that makes effective the reorganization of the Office of the Assistant Secretary – Indian Affairs (OAS/IA), the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA), and the Office of the Special Trustee for American Indians (OST) within the Department of the Interior. This new Departmental Manual, which was signed by Secretary Gale Norton on April 21, 2003, reflects suggestions, proposals, and recommendations that were presented to her last year through the Joint Tribal Leaders/DOI Task Force on Trust Reform.

“We now have an organization that will enable us to provide services more efficiently and effectively than in the past,” said Assistant Secretary Martin. “Our commitment is to enhancing the quality of life, promoting economic opportunity, and protecting and improving the trust assets of the tribes and individual American Indians and Alaska Natives whom we serve.”

Special Trustee Swimmer concurred in these comments and added that the reorganization is “designed to bring greater accountability, more efficiency and enhanced beneficiary services to the Indian community. Many new staff positions have been created at the local level to enhance the delivery of services.”

The new Departmental Manual describes responsibilities, delegated authorities, and organizational structures for the Office of the Assistant Secretary – Indian Affairs, the Bureau of Indian Affairs, and the Office of the Special Trustee for American Indians. Highlights include:

• New organizational charts for the Office of the Assistant Secretary – Indian Affairs, the Bureau of Indian Affairs, and the Office of the Special Trustee for American Indians;
• Updated descriptions of the Assistant Secretary – Indian Affairs’ responsibilities and authorities;
• Updated descriptions of the Office of the Special Trustee’s responsibilities and authorities;
• The renaming of the Bureau of Indian Affairs’ Deputy Commissioner as Director;
• New descriptions of BIA Director and Deputy Director responsibilities and authorities;
• The establishment of the Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary – Indian Affairs, Deputy Assistant Secretary – Policy and Economic Development, and Deputy Assistant Secretary – Information Resources Management/Chief Information Officer (CIO) with descriptions of responsibilities and authorities;
• New chapters on delegated authorities;
• New chapters describing field operations and those BIA functions that now will report to the Assistant Secretary – Indian Affairs, Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary – Indian Affairs, Deputy Assistant Secretary – Policy and Economic Development, Deputy Assistant Secretary –Management or Deputy Assistant Secretary – Information Resources Management/Chief Information Officer;
• Updated descriptions of the Bureau field organization;
• Updated list of field office locations;
• The addition of trust officers at local agencies and trust administrators at the regional level in OST to support trust operations; and
• The placement of chapters from the previous DM on Self-Governance, Audit and Evaluation, Office of American Indian Trust, Office of Trust Funds Management, Office of Trust Records, and Office of Trust Risk Management, along with new chapters describing authorities of the new Deputy Assistant Secretaries and other functions, within the new Departmental Manual.

As an example of the changes contained in the DM, the BIA’s Branch of Acknowledgement and Research (BAR) has been renamed the Office of Federal Acknowledgment (OFA). It will now report to the Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary – Indian Affairs, a new position within the Office of the Assistant Secretary – Indian Affairs. Actual personnel changes will be phased in gradually over the next few months.

The Assistant Secretary - Indian Affairs has responsibility for fulfilling the Department’s trust responsibilities and promoting self-determination on behalf of the 562 federally recognized American Indian and Alaska Native tribal governments. The Assistant Secretary also oversees the Bureau of Indian Affairs, an agency with 10,500 employees nationwide, which is responsible for providing services to approximately 1.5 million individual American Indians and Alaska Natives from the federally recognized tribes.

The Special Trustee for American Indians is responsible for the oversight and coordination of the Department’s efforts to reform its practices relating to the management and discharge of the Secretary’s Indian trust responsibilities.

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(Washington, D.C.) -- The Bureau of Indian Affairs Office of Law Enforcement Services (OLES) will hold its 12th Annual Memorial Service on Thursday May 1, 2003, to commemorate the sacrifice made by law enforcement officers killed in the line of duty while serving on Indian lands. The Memorial Service will start at 10:30 A.M. on the BIA Indian Police Academy grounds in Artesia, New Mexico.

“It’s a sad day when we add new names to the BIA Law Enforcement Officer’s Memorial,” Acting Assistant Secretary-Indian Affairs Aurene Martin said. “But we pay tribute to those individuals and their families by remembering the sacrifices they made.”

At this year’s Memorial Service, Terry Virden, Director, Bureau of Indian Affairs will provide the keynote address. Robert “Bob” Ecoffey, Deputy Director, Office of Law Enforcement Services will also address the assembly. Three names of fallen officers will be added to the granite stones joining eighty-one other law enforcement officers, whom have lost their lives in the line of duty since 1852. The names of Officer Glenn Dale Hollow Horn, Oglala Tribal Public Safety, Officer Lloyd Aragon, New Mexico State Police, and Officer Robert James Taylor, Chippewa Cree Law Enforcement Services will join their fallen comrades on the Memorial.

Officer Glenn Dale Hollow Horn, deceased April 5, 1980. Officer Hollow Horn served with the Oglala Sioux Tribal Public Safety, Pine Ridge, South Dakota. Hollow Horn was accidentally shot by another officer while on duty.

Lloyd Aragon, deceased August 1, 2001. New Mexico State Police Officer Aragon was working with two Laguna Tribal police officers on the Laguna Reservation to stop a subject in a stolen vehicle. Officer Aragon was hit and killed by the suspect while placing stop sticks to apprehend the suspect.

Robert James Taylor, deceased May 27, 2002. Officer Taylor served with the Chippewa Cree Law Enforcement Services, Box Elder, Montana. Officer Taylor drowned while trying to save a fisherman that had capsized in his boat.

The Indian Country Law Enforcement Officer’s Memorial site is constructed with Native American symbolism and traditional plants incorporated into the design. The three granite stones are surrounded by a cement/aggregate surface forming a circle around the vertical slabs with an opening to allow for access. Sage, a plant with spiritual significance, is planted in the four directions to consecrate the hallow ground. Four planter areas are filled foliage surrounded by white, red, yellow, and black stones to signify the four colors of mankind on the Earth.

The original Indian Country Law Enforcement Officer’s Memorial was dedicated on May 7, 1992 at the BIA’s Indian Police Academy (IPA), in Marana, Arizona. The Memorial was later moved to Artesia, New Mexico and re-dedicated on May 6, 1993 when the BIA Indian Police Academy was relocated to New Mexico.

A 750 person department, the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) Office of Law Enforcement Services provide uniformed police services, detention operations, and criminal investigation of alleged or suspected violations of major federal criminal laws in Indian Country.

For specific information or directions to the event call 505-748-8153.

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On February 20, 2003, the Department of the Interior received amendments to a Class III gaming compact executed by the Forest County Potawatomi Community and the State of Wisconsin. Under the terms of the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act (IGRA), the Secretary may approve or disapprove the compact before the date that is 45 days after receipt of the compact. If the Secretary does not approve or disapprove the compact by that date, the compact is considered to have been approved, but only to the extent that its terms comply with the requirements of IGRA.

In accordance with Section 11(d)(8)(C) of IGRA, the Secretary has neither approved nor disapproved the amendments to the Class III gaming compact between the Forest County Potawatomi Community and the State of Wisconsin. As a result, the compact is considered to have been approved as of April 5, 2003, and will take effect after notice is published in the Federal Register.

The Secretary will communicate by letter to the Governor of the State of Wisconsin and the Chairman of the Forest County Potawatomi Community regarding this matter.

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WASHINGTON – Acting Assistant Secretary – Indian Affairs Aurene M. Martin will observe Earth Day 2003 during a visit she will make to the Southwestern Indian Polytechnic Institute (SIPI) on April 23 at 2:20 p.m.(local time) to view its new Science and Technology Building and reforestation project. SIPI is a Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) funded, two-year institution located in Albuquerque, N.M., that provides general education, business, science and technical instruction at the associate degree and certificate levels for American Indians and Alaska Natives.

“With this new facility, SIPI will prepare a new generation of Indian students for the world of science to keep our Earth healthy,” said Assistant Secretary Martin, a member of the Bad River Band of Lake Superior Chippewa.

According to SIPI’s president, Dr. Joseph Martin, a member of the Navajo Nation, the new 72,540 square foot science and technology facility “will serve as a teaching, learning and research laboratory where students will be prepared for careers and/or matriculation to four-year universities in science, mathematics and engineering.”

The National Science Foundation (NSF) found that in 1997, the latest year available, American Indians comprised less than half of one percent of scientists and engineers in the United States. Currently, over 800 Indian students from more than 130 federally recognized tribes comprise SIPI’s student population.

In addition, SIPI has formed partnerships with federal departments and agencies, private companies and research entities on renewable energy technology and sustainable agricultural projects. For example, SIPI is working with the U.S. Department of Energy, Sandia National Laboratories and an Indian-owned company, Sacred Power, to design and install photovoltaic, wind and solar hot water systems on campus to educate and train students in renewable energy technology and has developed an educational curriculum focusing on applicable renewable energy technologies and sciences. As part of its sustainable agriculture program, SIPI students have already grown 22,000 seedlings to reforest tribal lands burned in the Cerro Grande fire. The seedlings are from stock indigenous to those lands.

“Indian people have a proud history of applying what is now called ‘science’ to their everyday lives,” Assistant Secretary Martin said. “Long before the first contact with Europeans, their ancestors had discovered the medicinal properties of plants, constructed housing made of environmentally compatible materials, cultivated hardy crops such as corn and wild rice, developed efficient ways of hunting, fishing and farming, and established methods and tools for measuring space, time and distance.” The Assistant Secretary - Indian Affairs has responsibility for fulfilling the Department’s trust responsibilities and promoting self-determination on behalf of the 562 federally recognized American Indian and Alaska Native tribal governments. The Assistant Secretary also oversees the Bureau of Indian Affairs, an agency with 10,500 employees nationwide, which is responsible for providing services to approximately 1.4 million individual American Indians and Alaska Natives from the federally recognized tribes.

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WASHINGTON, D.C. – Special Trustee for American Indians Ross O. Swimmer and Acting Assistant Secretary – Indian Affairs Aurene M. Martin will testify before the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs at its May 21 hearing on the reorganization of the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA). By reorganizing the agencies that manage Indian trust funds and assets, the Interior Department seeks to bring increased accountability and efficiency into the trust management area.

In 2002, the Department and the Federally-recognized tribes undertook an ambitious effort to change the way the Assistant Secretary – Indian Affairs and the Special Trustee for American Indians deliver BIA trust and non-trust services to tribes, tribal service populations and trust beneficiaries.

The reorganization plan is based on agreements reached with the Joint Tribal Leaders/DOI Task Force established by Secretary Gale Norton last year to examine and recommend proposals for improving the way such services are delivered. Task Force members provided insights into where organizational changes were needed so that services could be delivered more efficiently to recipients and beneficiaries.

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WASHINGTON -- Secretary of the Interior Gale Norton and Acting Assistant Secretary for Indian Affairs Aurene Martin, a member of the Bad River Band of Lake Superior Chippewa, say that a conference starting today at the University of Montana in Missoula will bring a "welcome" and needed forum for Native American perspectives on the Bicentennial of the Lewis and Clark Expedition.

Between 800 and 1,000 participants are expected today for "A Confluence of Cultures: Native Americans and the Expedition of Lewis and Clark," organized by the University of Montana and the Montana Lewis and Clark Bicentennial Commission, scheduled to run from May 28 to 30. Interior Department bureaus including the U.S. Bureau of Land Management and the National Park Service are co-sponsoring the event. Faculty members and students from 33 tribal colleges and 44 other institutions of higher learning have been invited. About 240 Indian performers, presenters, and speakers are expected.

"The knowledge and good will of the tribes not only guided the Lewis and Clark Expedition, but saved its members from starvation and death from exposure," says Interior Secretary Norton. "The Bicentennial needs to give special recognition to the voices of Americans who already knew the land as their home."

"We welcome the efforts of conference sponsors to provide an exceptional forum for Native American perspectives on the Bicentennial," adds Assistant Secretary Aurene Martin, who oversees the Bureau of Indian Affairs, which provides assistance to tribes and tribal colleges.

Norton notes that the Corps of Discovery II, an interagency museum-on-wheels traveling the nation, features a "Tent of Many Voices" in which the tribes and others are invited to give their viewpoints. The Corps of Discovery II is led by Gerard Baker, Superintendent of the Lewis and Clark National Historic Trail and a Mandan-Hidatsa Indian.

The Department of the Interior published a special interagency issue of its magazine, People Land and Water, called "The Lewis and Clark Bicentennial: Many Voices - One Journey Join Us." The May 2003 magazine features articles by a number of Native American "voices" and will be distributed at the conference.

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WASHINGTON, D.C. – Special Trustee for American Indians Ross O. Swimmer and Acting Assistant Secretary – Indian Affairs Aurene M. Martin today announced that the Department of the Interior (DOI) will hold presentations beginning next week on the reorganization of the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) and the Office of the Special Trustee for American Indians (OST) for the agencies’ regional employees. The Department is seeking to increase accountability and efficiency in its trust management functions by reorganizing the agencies that manage Indian trust funds and assets. Presentations will take place in June at the Bureau’s 12 regional offices and other locations around the nation starting with the Southwest Region on Tuesday, June 3, 2003, at the DoubleTree Hotel in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

The employees will be briefed on the Department’s plan for reorganization of the BIA and OST, and on the Comprehensive Trust Management Plan (CTMP) at an 8:30 a.m. session on Tuesday. The CTMP describes how the new BIA and OST organizational structures will improve the delivery of trust services when the reorganization is completed. Tribal leaders from the region will also be briefed on the reorganization effort in a subsequent session.

In 2002, the Department and the Tribes together undertook an ambitious effort to change the way the BIA and OST deliver trust and non-trust services to Tribes, tribal service populations and trust beneficiaries. The Plan is based on agreements reached with the Joint Tribal Leaders/DOI Task Force established by Secretary Gale Norton to examine and recommend proposals for improving service delivery to recipients and beneficiaries.

CREDENTIALS: Media registration will be provided. Please bring your sanctioned media credentials and, if possible, wear on your shirt collar or around your neck for easy viewing. This will assist our staff. Press seating will be provided.

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WASHINGTON, D.C. – The Department of the Interior (DOI) will continue its schedule of presentations to employees of the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) and the Office of the Special Trustee for American Indians (OST) on the reorganization of both agencies. This week, employees of the Northwest Region will be briefed on June 4 in Portland, Ore., and June 5 in Spokane, Wash. Western Region employees will be briefed on June 4 in Phoenix, Ariz. The Department is seeking to increase accountability and efficiency in its trust management functions by reorganizing the agencies that manage Indian trust funds and assets. Presentations will take place in June at the Bureau’s 12 regional offices and other locations around the nation.

The employees will be briefed on the Department’s plan for reorganization of the BIA and OST, and on the Comprehensive Trust Management Plan (CTMP) at 8:30 a.m. sessions on Wednesday and Thursday. The CTMP describes how the new BIA and OST organizational structures will improve the delivery of trust services when the reorganization is completed. Tribal leaders from the region will also be briefed on the reorganization effort in subsequent sessions.

In 2002, the Department and the Tribes together undertook an ambitious effort to change the way the BIA and OST deliver trust and non-trust services to Tribes, tribal service populations and trust beneficiaries. The Plan is based on agreements reached with the Joint Tribal Leaders/DOI Task Force established by Secretary Gale Norton to examine and recommend proposals for improving service delivery to recipients and beneficiaries.

CREDENTIALS: Press registration will be provided. Please bring your sanctioned media credentials and if possible, wear on your shirt collar or around your neck for easy viewing. This will assist our staff. Press seating will be provided.

-DOI-

WASHINGTON, D.C. – The Department of the Interior (DOI) will continue its schedule of presentations to employees of the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) and the Office of the Special Trustee for American Indians (OST) on the reorganization of both agencies. This week, employees of the Navajo Region will be briefed on June 6 at the Navajo Nation Museum Auditorium in Window Rock, Ariz. The Department is seeking to increase accountability and efficiency in its trust management functions by reorganizing the agencies that manage Indian trust funds and assets. Presentations are taking place in June at the Bureau’s 12 regional offices and other locations around the nation.

The Navajo Region employees will be briefed on the Department’s plan for reorganization of the BIA and OST, and on the Comprehensive Trust Management Plan (CTMP) at an 8:30 a.m. session on Friday. The CTMP describes how the new BIA and OST organizational structures will improve the delivery of trust services when the reorganization is completed. Tribal leaders from the region will also be briefed on the reorganization effort in a subsequent session.

In 2002, the Department and the Tribes together undertook an ambitious effort to change the way the BIA and OST deliver trust and non-trust services to Tribes, tribal service populations and trust beneficiaries. The Plan is based on agreements reached with the Joint Tribal Leaders/DOI Task Force established by Secretary Gale Norton to examine and recommend proposals for improving service delivery to recipients and beneficiaries.

CREDENTIALS: Press registration will be provided. Please bring your sanctioned media credentials and if possible, wear on your shirt collar or around your neck for easy viewing. This will assist our staff. Press seating will be provided.

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