A change in Federal regulations that will permit the Bureau of Indian Affairs to make loans to withdrawing members of the Klamath Indian Tribe of Oregon regardless of their degree of Indian blood was announced today by the Department of the Interior.
Under the former rules, loans could not be made to individuals of less than a quarter degree Indian blood.
The amendment of the regulation was made possible as a result of legislation recommended by the Department and recently enacted by Congress (Public Law 86-40).
The Bureau has been making loans to withdrawing Klamath members of one-fourth or more Indian blood since last December. The loans have been made without interest and have been set off against funds payable to the borrowers under the Klamath Termination Act. Sales of tribal forest lands to compensate the withdrawing members are being made over a two-year period which began last April.
Of the 1,659 withdrawing members of the Klamath Tribe, 253 or about 15 percent are of less than one-fourth Indian blood and in position to benefit from the rules change.
