Past News Items

Award or a contract for construction of an earth-fill dam on the Wind River Indian Reservation in Fremont County, Wyoming was announced today by the Department of the Interior.

The accepted bid of $35,932.64 submitted by L. H. Weber of Rawlins, Wyoming, was the lowest of seven received by the Bureau of Indian Affairs. The others ranged from $36,000 to $70,600.

Washington, D.C. – Assistant Secretary-Indian Affairs Larry Echo Hawk today announced the schedule for the month of December for the Interior Department’s series of tribal consultation meetings to develop a Department-wide tribal consultation policy.

The December schedule of tribal consultation meetings is as follows (all times are local time):

Date: Wednesday, December 2, 2009

Times: 9:00 a.m. – 12:00 noon/1:00 p.m. – 4:00 p.m.

Location: Hilton-Anchorage, 500 W 3rd Ave., Anchorage, Alaska, 99501 907-272-7411

Secretary of the Interior Rogers C. B. Morton in a statement issued today urged support of legislation to restore the terminated Menominee Indians of Wisconsin to Federal status as Indians.

Marvin Franklin, Assistant to the Secretary for Indian Affairs, testified today before the Indian Affairs Subcommittee of the House Committee on Interior and Insular Affairs in support of H.R. 7421, the Menominee Restoration Act.

The text of Secretary Morton's statement follows:

The Bureau of Indian Affairs has named new superintendents for the Blackfeet Agency in Montana and the Uintah/Ouray Agency in Utah, Acting Deputy Commissioner Sidney Mills announced today.

Michael A. Fairbanks, superintendent at the Michigan Agency, Sault Ste Marie, Michigan, will be the new agency head at the 950,000 acre Blackfeet Reservation headquartered at Browning, Montana. Fairbanks, age 43, an enrolled member of the Red Lake Band of Chippewas, attended Bemidji State and North Dakota State majoring in social sciences.

WASHINGTON–Assistant Secretary-Indian Affairs Larry Echo Hawk today announced that he will visit the Rough Rock Community School on Wednesday, Sept. 16, where he will be joined by Navajo Nation President Joe Shirley to attend a ceremonial groundbreaking for the Phase II portion of the Rough Rock Community School Replacement Project.

Thirty American Indian students at Haskell Indian Junior College Lawrence, Kans., the only Indian college operated by the Federal Government, completed a summer internship in government in Washington, D.C., in August Marvin L. Franklin, Assistant to the Secretary of the Interior for Indian Affairs, announced today.

"These young people representing nine states were chosen from about 100 who asked to be included in the program," Franklin indicated.

Regulations to establish rules and procedures for the conduct of an election of an interim Yurok Tribal governing committee are being published in the Federal Register, Interior Assistant Secretary Forrest Gerard announced today.

Gerard said the action is in accord with his November 20, 1978 message to the Hoopa Valley and Yurok people and is intended as one of the first steps leading to participation by the Yurok Tribe in the management of the Hoopa Valley Indian Reservation.

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Larry Echo Hawk, 60, was sworn into office today as the Interior Department’s 11th Assistant Secretary for Indian Affairs. Echo Hawk is an enrolled member of the Pawnee Nation of Oklahoma whose nomination was confirmed by the United States Senate on May 19, 2009. Secretary Salazar conducted the official swearing in ceremony.

Lauding the action of the Senate today in confirming President Nixon's nomination of Morris Thompson as Commissioner of Indian Affairs, Secretary of the Interior Rogers C. B. Morton said he was confident Thompson would provide the leadership to begin "a new era for American Indians."

The Department of the Interior today released the attached letter from Attorney General Griffin B. Bell to Secretary Cecil D. Andrus concerning the legal principles governing the conduct of the Department of Justice in litigation for the purpose of protecting Indian property rights secured by statutes and treaties.

Honorable Cecil D. Andrus

Secretary of Interior

Washington, D.C.

Dear Mr. Secretary: