Past News Items

WASHINGTON – The National Park Service today announced nearly $40,000 in repatriation grants under the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA) to assist museums, Indian tribes and Native Hawaiian organizations in returning ancestral human remains and cultural objects to their people.

Award of a $375,798 contract for construction work that will nearly double the capacity of Indian school facilities at Canoncito, New Mexico, 18 miles west - of Albuquerque, was announced today by the Department of the Interior.

Canoncito School, operated by the Bureau of Indian Affairs, has a present enrollment of 62 day pupils. When completed, the enlarged facilities will provide for 120 day pupils.

WASHINGTON, D.C. - Secretary of the Interior Gale A. Norton has upheld a June 2004 decision by former Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary - Indian Affairs Aurene M. Martin, who declined to acknowledge as an Indian tribe a group known as the Golden Hill Paugussett Tribe of Indians. The petitioning group, headquartered in Trumbull.
Connecticut, did not successfully demonstrate that it meets all seven mandatory criteria for Federal acknowledgment as an Indian tribe under Federal regulations.

SELLS, Ariz. – Today, Assistant Secretary for Indian Affairs Tara Mac Lean Sweeney reopened the Santa Rosa Ranch School (SRRS), located on the Tohono O’odham Nation reservation. The school provides education for grades K-8 and serves approximately 66 students. The school had been closed since December 13, 2018, when the Bureau of Indian Education (BIE) leadership and safety personnel identified several high priority deficiencies during a campus walk-through.

The Department of the Interior today announced the award of a $1,011,750 contract for the construction of a new 12-classroom high school on the Turtle Mountain Indian Reservation at Belcourt, North Dakota.

The new school will provide seats for 360 Indian students. It will serve the dual purpose of relieving overcrowding in the Indian Bureau's present combined elementary and high school at Belcourt and of accommodating 260 additional high school pupils.

WASHINGTON – Assistant Secretary – Indian Affairs David W. Anderson will attend the Boys & Girls Clubs of America (BCGA) 2005 Native American Summit in Phoenix, Ariz., next month where he will sign a cooperative agreement with the organization to establish BCGA Indian Clubs at or near schools funded by the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA). The summit will take place Feb. 1-3 at the Embassy Suites Hotel Phoenix-North.

WASHINGTON — Yesterday, U.S. Department of the Interior (DOI) Assistant Secretary for Indian Affairs Tara Sweeney and Gila River Indian Community (Community) Governor Stephen Lewis signed a lease for the Gila Crossing Community School, the Community’s Bureau of Indian Education (BIE) K-8 school located in District 6 on the Reservation. An innovative partnership between DOI and the Community resulted in the first-of-its-kind lease in Indian Country that will educate and empower future generations of Community children.

The Department of the Interior today announced a proposed revision of Federal regulations to remove restrictions against read construction that have applied for more than 20 years on 283,000 acres of Indian reservation land in Arizona and Washington.

The lands that would be affected are the Goat Rocks Area of 105,000 acres and the Mount Adams Area of 48,000 acres, both on the Yakima Reservation in Washington, and the Mount Thomas Area of 130,000 acres on the Fort Apache Reservation in Arizona.

WASHINGTON – Interior Associate Deputy Secretary James E. Cason today announced that the Indian Affairs Office of Indian Energy and Economic Development (IEED) will sponsor the conference “Accessing Capital: Lending Opportunities in Indian Country” to be held May 1-3, 2006, on the White Earth Band of Chippewa Indians reservation in Minnesota. The conference will take place at the tribe’s Shooting Star Casino Hotel and Event Center in Mahnomen, Minn.

WASHINGTON – President Trump today proposed a $944.5 million Fiscal Year 2021 budget for the Bureau of Indian Education (BIE). The BIE’s budget request is presented separately, continuing the historical action in FY 2020 to recognize the distinct and separate responsibilities and missions of the Indian Affairs’ two bureaus. The FY2021 budget request will continue to advance BIE reform, provide autonomy and accountability, streamline services, maximize efficiency, and build capacity.