Past News Items

WASHINGTON – Bureau of Indian Affairs Regional Director Stanley M. Speaks was one of nine BIA employees recognized by Interior Secretary Gale Norton at the Department’s 61st Honor Awards Convocation on September 4, 2002. The event, last held in October 2000, honored the achievement, valor, excellence and merit of Interior employees.

Commissioner of Indian Affairs Glenn L. Emmons today strongly urged the Army Corps of Engineers to take action "at the earliest possible date” to eliminate a flood threat to tribally developed pasturelands on the Big Cypress Seminole Indian Reservation in Florida.

WASHINGTON -- Secretary of the Interior Gale Norton and Acting Assistant Secretary for Indian Affairs Aurene Martin, a member of the Bad River Band of Lake Superior Chippewa, say that a conference starting today at the University of Montana in Missoula will bring a "welcome" and needed forum for Native American perspectives on the Bicentennial of the Lewis and Clark Expedition.

Bonus bids running as high as $5,505.55 per acre have been received for oil and gas leases on lands of the Navajo Indian Tribe in Utah and New Mexico which brought tribally rejected bids of only $257 an acre just 13 months ago, the Department of the Interior announced today.

These were part of the results of a January 13 bid opening at Window Rock, Arizona, involving 36 Navajo tracts with a total of 72,370 acres. The total of the high bids received was $3,603,927.54.

WASHINGTON - Interior Secretary Gale Norton will meet with American Indian leaders in Bismarck, N. D., June18, 2002, as part of ongoing consultations to review plans for improving the Department of the Interior's management of Indian trust assets. Members of the Joint Tribal Leaders/DOI Task Force on Trust Reform recently presented Secretary Norton a report on the group's efforts to evaluate proposals from tribal groups on ways to improve Interior's management of Indian trust funds and assets.

The state of Alaska, the Bureau of Indian Affairs, and the Office of Education have reached a basic understanding on educational goals and responsibilities in the 49th state, the Department of the Interior reported today.

The understanding was developed at meetings in Washington, D. C., attended by representatives of the Alaska state Government and the two Federal agencies.

The conference agreed on the following 13 points:

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Interior Secretary Gale Norton today announced her designation of Aurene M. Martin, a member of the Bad River Band of Lake Superior Chippewa, as Acting Assistant Secretary – Indian Affairs. “Aurene Martin brings solid experience in Indian affairs and a commitment to excellence to her new role,” said Secretary Norton.

A special exhibit, "Indian Handicraft, the True and the False," has been arranged in the Department of the Interior Museum at Washington, D. C., and will be displayed for two months.

Material for the exhibit was furnished by the Indian Arts and Crafts Board of the Department of the Interior and consists of Indian handicraft of all types, from jewelry to Indian dolls.

(WASHINGTON, D.C.) – Assistant Secretary – Indian Affairs Neal A. McCaleb today announced he has issued a Notice of Proposed Finding whereby he proposes to decline to acknowledge that the Nipmuc Nation headquartered in Sutton, Mass., (petition #69A) exists as an Indian tribe within the meaning of Federal law.

In response to wishes of the tribal membership, the Department of the Interior has proposed legislation providing for division of tribal assets of the Ponca Indians of northeastern Nebraska and discontinuing their special Indian relations with the Federal Government, Assistant Secretary John A. Carver, Jr., reported today.

Under a bill suggested to Congress by the Department, division of the assets would be made only if approved by a majority of the adult members of the tribe.