Past News Items

FAIRBANKS, Alaska – U.S. Secretary of the Interior Sally Jewell today announced a Secretarial Order encouraging cooperative management opportunities between the Department’s land and water managers and federally-recognized tribes.

The internationally famous exhibition of American Indian arts and crafts which was shown in Europe at International Festivals of the Arts in both Edinburgh, Scotland and Berlin, West Germany, is to have a Latin-American tour, starting this spring.

The exhibit has also been shown in London, England; Ankara, Turkey; Santa Fe, N.M.; Colorado Springs, Colo.; and Alaska, during last year's centennial there.

Cuts in federal funding for Indian education programs cannot be allowed to affect the quality of education being provided to young people, Kenneth L. Smith, Assistant Secretary for Indian Affairs, said today.

Addressing the National Indian Education Association conference in Portland, Oregon, Smith said budget reductions are coming and Indian education would have to shoulder its share.

WHAT: In October of this year, President Obama announced a series of public and private sector efforts to address the prescription drug abuse and heroin epidemic. As part of those commitments, the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy; the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Indian Health Service; and the U.S. Department of the Interior, Bureau of Indian Affairs will host a press conference to announce an agreement to equip BIA officers with naloxone for responding to incidents of opioid overdose.

The Department of the Interior today announced that in response to a request from the Hopi Indian Tribal Council, it is directing the removal of about 35 Navajo Indians who are illegally residing within the Hopi Reservation in northern Arizona.

Assistant Secretary of Interior Harry R. Anderson instructed the Superintendent of the Hopi Agency, Clyde Pensoneau at Keams Canyon, Arizona, to serve the eviction notices on those Indians who did not comply with previous eviction notices of the Hopi Council.

Assistant Secretary of the Interior for Indian Affairs Ken Smith announced today an early opening of the Sockeye and Pink Salmon Fishery of the Fraser River System in the State of Washington in two areas of the Strait of Juan de Fuca.

The Makah and Klallam Indian tribes began fishing in their treaty fishing sites within the Strait on June 27. This opening date precedes by approximately six days the opening by other treaty tribes and non-Indians on July 3-5.

WASHINGTON, DC – The U.S. Department of the Interior today launched a new data portal that raises the bar on transparency of natural resource revenue by offering the public a one-stop shop to access revenues paid for developing energy and mineral resources on public lands and waters at the company and commodity level for the first time.

The award of a $2,930,848 contract for the construction of an elementary boarding school at Dilkon, Arizona was announced today by the Department of the Interior's Bureau of Indian Affairs.

The new school complex will make possible the closing of three small trailer schools. Construction plans call for 26 classrooms; a multipurpose building; kitchen-dining building; bus garage; two 128-pupil dormitories; 10 one-bedroom staff apartments; 20 two-bedroom houses and 30 three-bedroom houses and an instructional materials center and administration offices.

John A. Jollie, an enrolled member of the Turtle Mountain Chippewa Tribe of North Dakota, has been selected as the new coordinator of the Tribal Managers Corps (TMC), a program in the BIA's Division of Self-Determination Services.

WASHINGTON, DC – As part of President Obama’s commitment to working with Indian Country leaders to promote strong, prosperous and resilient tribal economies and communities, Assistant Secretary – Indian Affairs Kevin K. Washburn today announced that more than $9.4 million has been awarded to 46 tribal projects to assist in developing energy and mineral resources. The grants were awarded as part of the Energy and Mineral Development Program administered by the Office of Indian Energy and Economic Development (IEED), a division of the Office of the Assistant Secretary – Indian Affairs.