Past News Items

The Confederated Indian Tribes of the Warm Springs Reservation in Oregon were warmly commended today by the Bureau of Indian Affairs of the Department of the Interior for the "progressive step" they have taken in entering into a $100,000 contract with Oregon State College for a study of the human and natural resources on the reservation.

WASHINGTON – Assistant Secretary – Indian Affairs Carl J. Artman and South Dakota Senator John Thune yesterday unveiled their joint proposal for a South Dakota Indian and Tribal Business Incubator Project to help accelerate economic development throughout the state’s nine federal Indian reservations. The project will target the Cheyenne River Sioux, Crow Creek Sioux, Flandreau Santee Sioux, Lower Brule Sioux, Oglala Sioux, Rosebud Sioux, the Sisseton-Wahpeton Oyate, Standing Rock Sioux and Yankton Sioux tribes.

Mr. Chairman, Governor O'Callaghan, distinguished guests, ladies and Gentlemen:

It is an honor to respond to your invitation to be here for the Third Annual State Indian Conference. I congratulate our hosts, the

A Nevada Indian Affairs Commission, for this event, and I congratulate

Award of a $1,600,000 contract for construction of a new school building and two dormitories on the campus of the Haskell Indian Institute at Lawrence, Kansas, was announced today by the Department of the Interior.

“We wish to join Cherokee Nation Principal Chief Chad Smith in expressing our grief and deepest sympathy to the Cherokee Nation people and to the Dawes family over the loss of Mike Dawes, a Cherokee citizen and lifetime law enforcement officer who died in service to his tribe and his country while endeavoring to bring peace in a country at war. As a Bureau of Indian Affairs-deputized law enforcement officer in the 1990s, he brought an esprit de corps and level of professionalism to the performance of his duties that set a standard for others.

The Department of the Interior has asked Congress for legislation declaring the Colorado River Indian Reservation, which lies mainly in Arizona and partly in California, to be the property of the Mohave and Chemehuevi Indians now occupying the reservation.

Enactment of a bill proposed by the Department would settle a long-standing controversy which has seriously retarded effective development of the 1,300,000- acre reservation, the Department said.

Award of a $51,625.00 contract for improving 5.7 miles of the Mineral Center Grand Portage Road, on the Grand Portage Indian Reservation, Cook County, Minnesota, was announced by the Department of the Interior today.

The project will provide all-weather transportation facilities for the residents of the Village of Grand Portage and will encourage tourist travel to this Indian village. The road also serves as a farm-to-market outlet, and mail and school bus route. It is the only road outlet for the residents of the Village.

WASHINGTON – Assistant Secretary – Indian Affairs David W. Anderson today announced a cooperative initiative with the General Services Administration (GSA) to provide Federally recognized tribes participating in the Office of Indian Affairs (OIA) Native Sovereign Nation (NSN) Domain Name Program with the opportunity to use E-Buy, GSA’s online procurement system for products and services.

WASHINGTON – Assistant Secretary - Indian Affairs Tara Katuk Sweeney praised the seizure of over $400,000 in high-grade marijuana made by a Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) – Office of Justice Services (OJS) K9 unit during a traffic stop. On April 6, 2019, a BIA-OJS K9 officer, serving as part of the OJS Division of Drug Enforcement (DDE), seized over 81 pounds of the high-grade marijuana within the exterior boundaries of the Laguna Pueblo on Interstate 40 in New Mexico.

The Department of the Interior announced today that it favors the enactment of legislation to fix the final construction cost of irrigation works already constructed on the Wapato-Status Unit of the Wapato Indian Irrigation Project in Washington and to allocate that cost on a per-acre basis to the lands that can be served by these works.

In commenting on H. R. 12771, the Department pointed out that the bill is an outgrowth of the desire on the part of the Wapato-Status landowners to know with certainty the total construction charges against their lands.