OPA

The Department of the Interior has ordered four coal companies to show cause within 30 days why their prospecting permits and mining leases on Crow Tribal lands in Montana should not be canceled because they exceed limitations on lease size.

Involved in the action are American Metals Climax (AMAX) and Shell Oil Co., which have mining leases; and the Peabody Coal Co. and Gulf Oil Corp. which have permits with options to lease. The companies are entitled to an administrative hearing on the matter.

The action follows by a year then-Secretary of the Interior Thomas Kleppe's decision that the companies' leases and lease options violated a 2,560-acre limitation. He ordered Shell and AMAX to cut their leases to the limit or show a clear need for more acreage. He also ruled that Peabody's and Gulf's req1.1ests for leases larger than 2,560 acres were unsupported and that larger leases would have to be negotiated with the Tribe.

Kleppe's decision was aimed at ending a suit the Crow Tribe filed against the Department in 1975, and later against the four coal companies, to have the leases and permits invalidated on grounds they exceeded acreage limitations and that the Department had failed to prepare Environmental Impact Statements on the leases.

The Tribe argued that leases--and permits granted with preferences to lease--are limited by regulation to 2,560 acres unless the permittee can show more acreage is necessary to provide coal for industrial facilities built on or near the reservation.

A continuation of the 1975 suit is now pending in the Montana U.S. District Court. In another attempt at ending the suit, the Department warned the companies last September that action to cancel would be initiated if no progress in negotiations were ma4e under the Kleppe order within 60 days. On the basis of that directive, the court gave the Department a 90-day stay but ordered it to report its position on the suit and on the validity of the leases and permits. The show cause order complies with that reporting deadline.

"Since we put the companies on notice in September there has been no progress in the negotiations--and none in the year since Secretary Kleppe's decision, for that matter, “said Interior Solicitor Leo M. Krulitz. “Some of the companies contend that because of disputes among the representation, they haven't known whom to negotiate with but regardless of the disputes, there have always been duly elected tribal officials to whom an offer might have been submitted.”

The four companies were successful bidders for coal prospecting permits on Crow lands in three sales dating back to 1968. Terms of the permits included exclusive options to lease for mining with a royalty of 17.5 cents per ton. Bonus payments for the permits ranged from as little as the $1 which Peabody paid for each of its 86,000 permit acres to AMAX’s $15.33 per acre for 16,617 acres.

Shell received a mining lease on 30,247 acres of permit lands in 1972 and AMAX on 14,236 acres in 1973. Gulf has asked for a lease on most of the 73,000 plus acres it has under permit and Peabody began negotiations with the tribe for an 11,000 acre mining lease. Both leases have been delayed pending completion of environmental Impact Statements. That work also hinges on negotiations between the tribe and the companies. In his 1977 order, Kleppe told the companies that Environmental Impact Statements would be required for each lease. But that no EIS work would begin until the companies reached agreement with the Tribe over lease size.

Commissioner of Indian Affairs Morris Thompson announced today the appointment of Leo Brockie, Jr., as Superintendent of the Bureau of Indian Affairs' Rocky Boy's Agency at Box Elder, Montana.

Brockie, a Chippewa-Cree Indian, has been the Acting Superintendent t at Rocky Boy's during the past year. He was formerly the community services Officer at the Fort Belknap Agency at Harlem, Montana.

A graduate of the Harlem High School, Brockie earned a BS in Education from the Northern Montana College in 1964. He completed the Department of Interior’s Management Training Program in 1971.

A plan for the use and distribution of $300,000 awarded to the Shawnee Indians by the Indian Claims commission is being published in the Federal Register, Commissioner of Indian Affairs Morris Thompson announced today.

The award represents additional compensation for some 24,000 acres of land in Kansas sold in 1869.

According to the plan, approved by Congress and made effective March 5, 1976, approximately 40 percent of the award will go to the Absentee Shawnee Tribe of Oklahoma and the balance to the Cherokee Band of Shawnee.

Twenty percent of the funds allotted to the Absentee Shawnee Tribe of Oklahoma will be held in trust by the Secretary of the Interior, with other funds of the tribe, to be used for a tribal burial assistance program and other tribal Purposes. The rest will be distributed on a per capita basis to tribal members.

A per capita distribution of all the award funds for the Cherokee Band will be made.

A 1976 calendar of Indian celebrations, ceremonials, fairs and other special events open to the public has been published by the Bureau of Indian Affairs.

The 40-page pocket-size booklet is designed to provide tourists in Indian country with information about historical commemorations, arts and crafts fairs, rodeos, pow-wows, native dances, religious observances and other attractions.

Events are listed by state, dates and locations. Brief, general advice for potential visitors is included. Addresses and phone numbers of BIA field offices where additional information is available are listed.

The American Indian Calendar 1976 will be available from the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, D.C. 20402. The price is $1.05, and the stock number which should be used when ordering is 024-002-00056-0.

Editors: A review copy of the American Indian Calendar 1976 is available upon request from the Office of Public Information, Bureau of Indian Affairs, and Washington D.C. 20245.

A plan for the use and distribution of more than $400,000 awarded to the Mojave Indians by the Indian Claims Commission for lands taken more than a century ago by the United States is being published in the Federal Register.

The award will be divided between the Fort Mojave Tribe of the Fort Mojave Reservation and certain persons of Mojave ancestry from the Colorado River Reservation. Both reservations are located on the California-Arizona, border.

The funds apportioned to the Fort Mojave Tribe, according to the plan approved by Congress and made effective April 12, will all be used for tribal programs, including health benefits for the elderly, improved transportation for tribal members and other community needs.

The funds apportioned to the Colorado River Mojaves will be distributed to the individuals on a per capita basis after a roll of eligible persons has been completed.

Laura Bergt, a noted Eskimo leader, has been appointed as one of the five Commissioners of the Indian Arts and Crafts Board, Secretary of the Interior Thomas S. Kleppe announced today.

Mrs. Bergt currently serves as one of the distinguished members of President Ford's American Revolution Bicentennial Advisory Council, the Native American Council of Regents of the Institute of American Indian Arts, and on various Alaska state commissions and boards concerned with Native American education and cultural development, such as the University of Alaska Village Arts and Crafts Upgrade Committee and the Alaska state Rural Affairs Commission. She is a former member of the National Council on Indian Opportunity, and served with the Alaska State Native Land Claims Task Force. Mrs. Bergt resides in Fairbanks, Alaska.

The Indian Arts and Crafts Board's priority concerns are the protection of Native American artists and craftsmen and the expansion of their cultural opportunities. The Board provides professional advisory services and operates three museums located in Browning, Montana, Rapid City, South Dakota, and Anadarko, Oklahoma, which function as centers for exhibition, study and the sale of authentic contemporary Native American arts and crafts.

Other Commissioners on the Indian Arts and Crafts Board are Lloyd H. New, Chairman, and Director of the Institute of American Indian Arts of Santa Fe, New Mexico; Royal B. Hassrick, author and anthropologist specializing in Plains Indian culture and Western Americana, of Franktown, Colorado; William H. Crowe, Cherokee designer-craftsman of Cherokee, North Carolina; and Gerald J. Gray, Blackfeet educator and Superintendent of School District Number 87 in Box Elder, Montana.

A plan for the use and distribution of more than $400,000 awarded to the Pillager Bands of Chippewa Indians by the Indian Claims Commission was published in the Federal Register on May 27, Commissioner of Indian Affairs Morris Thompson said today.

The Award represents additional compensation for some 814,000 acres of land in west central Minnesota cede to the United States under the treaty of August 21, 1847.

Chippewa descendants of the Pillager Bands are now affiliated with either the Leech Lake Reservation of the White Earth Reservation in Minnesota.

According to the plan, approved by Congress and made effective April 28, 80 percent of the Award will be distributed on a per capita basis to enrolled members of the Minnesota Chippewa Tribe of Pillager Bands descent. The remaining 20 percent will be utilized for social and community purposes on the Leech Lake and White Earth Reservations.

Anson A. Baker, an enrolled member of the Mandan-Hidatsa Tribe, has been appointed Superintendent of the Bureau of Indian Affairs' Blackfeet Agency at Browning, Montana, Commissioner of Indian Affairs Morris Thompson announced today.

Baker has been Superintendent the past three years at the Fort Berthold Agency in North Dakota. He was previously Superintendent of the Crow and Fort Peck agencies in Montana.

Baker, 49, came to word for the Bureau 25 years ago as a property supply clerk in the Aberdeen, South Dakota, Area Office. After working at the Rosebud and Pine Ridge Agencies in South Dakota and Fort Belknap in Montana, he was at the Blackfeet Agency from 1964 to 1967 as administrative manager.

Proposed amendments to the regulations governing the enrollment of Alaska Natives under the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act, as amended, were published in the Federal Register, June 4, 1976 Commissioner of Indian Affairs Morris Thompson announced today.

The proposed revision of the regulations is for the purpose of permitting the filing and review of applications for enrollment pursuant to the Act of January 2, 1976. This Act re-opened the rolls for those persons who missed the original enrollment deadline of March 30, 1973.

Eligibility criteria for enrollment are the same as for the first enrollment. In general, this means that a person must be at least one-quarter degree or more Alaska Indian, Eskimo, or Aleut blood --or a combination, thereof --and living on December 18, 1971.

The Settlement Act granted Alaska Natives 40 million acres of land and nearly a billion dollars. Comments, suggestions or objections regarding the proposed regulations should be sent to the Commissioner of Indian Affairs, Washington, D.C. 20245 within 30 days after publication.

A plan for the distribution of more than $1.5 million awarded to the Yakima Indian Tribe by the Indian Claims Commission is being published in the Federal Register, Commissioner of Indian Affairs Morris Thompson announced today.

The award is additional compensation for land ceded by the Yakima Nation in 1859.

According to the plan, approved by Congress and made effective May 13, 1976, the funds will be distributed on a per capita basis to the enrolled members of the Confederated Tribes and Bands of the Yakima Indian Nation.