Past News Items

Secretary of the Interior Rogers C. B. Morton today announced approval of the largest Land and Water Conservation Fund project to date on Indian Indians. The $550,000 L&WCF grant is for development of the Blackfeet lands. St. Mary's Lake Recreation Complex in Montana.

Burton Rider, a Gros Ventre-Cree Indian, has been named Assistant Area Director for the Bureau of Indian Affairs' Billings, Montana office, Acting Deputy Commissioner Sidney L. Mills said today.

Rider, 49, has been Superintendent of the Fort Peck Agency at Poplar, Montana. His appointment in the area office will be effective October 21 He succeeds Maurice W. (Bill) Babby who has accepted a position in the Office of the Commissioner in Washington, D.C.

WASHINGTON, D.C. - The Department of the Interior proposes to acknowledge the Shinnecock Indian Nation of Southampton, New York as a federally recognized Indian tribe, Acting Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary – Indian Affairs George T. Skibine announced today. The Department will issue a notice of this proposed finding in the Federal Register.

America's attention has been focused on the irresponsible violence at Wounded Knee. The future of Indian self-determination can only be set back when unrepresentative groups disregard the law.

Instead of leading to solutions and the conditions for a new era of Indian self-determination, violence leads only to more violence, and more suffering.

Human injustice cannot be eliminated without the conditions for equity --and full moral responsibility cannot be met without full legal authority.

Commissioner of Indian Affairs Glenn L. Emmons today made a public statement on the current status of a claim against the United States filed with the Indian Claims commission in 1948 by the Creek Indian Tribe.

The claim involves compensation for about nine million acres in Georgia and Alabama, ceded to the United States by the Treaty of Fort Jackson in 1814.

Washington, D.C. – Assistant Secretary-Indian Affairs Larry Echo Hawk today announced that he has approved a realignment of his office’s organizational and reporting structure. The realignment is contained in an order he signed on September 11, 2009, effective immediately. The action to reorganize the Office of the Assistant Secretary-Indian Affairs (OAS-IA) was taken in order to strengthen the management and administration for Indian Affairs’ bureaus, offices and programs.

Robert R. Nathan Associates, Inc., has been awarded a contract by the Department of the Interior to head up a team of independent consulting groups which will prepare a study and report on various characteristics of the Alaska Native community and on selected Federal programs, it was announced today.

The formula for distributing Johnson-Q' Malley Act funding to schools serving Indian students will be determined by a run-off election to be conducted this fall, Interior Deputy Assistant Secretary Rick Lavis announced today.

The 1978 Education Amendments Act (P.L. 95-561) requires that the distribution formula be chosen by a majority vote of the tribes and Alaska village groups.

WASHINGTON – Assistant Secretary-Indian Affairs Larry Echo Hawk today announced the addition of Wizipan Garriott, Tracie Stevens and Paul Tsosie to his immediate staff and senior policy team. They will support the Assistant Secretary as he moves forward in carrying out Interior Secretary Ken Salazar’s Indian education and law enforcement initiatives, distributing Recovery Act funds to Indian Country, and overseeing Indian Affairs bureaus, offices and programs.

American Indian, Eskimo, and Aleut year 'round events that help non-Native Americans appreciate the unusual contributions of those whose home this was before the arrival of the Europeans are now listed in "American Indian Calendar 1974" available from the Superintendent of Documents, Washington, D.C. 20402 for 65 cents.