Past News Items

Commissioner of Indian Affairs Robert L. Bennett today announced that two new Indian employment assistance centers will be opened in Oklahoma within the next two weeks.

To be located in Oklahoma City and Tulsa, the centers will serve as adjuncts to the vocational training and job placement services provided through the Bureau's area offices in Muskogee and Anadarko. Referrals to the new centers for services will be made by the Muskogee and Anadarko offices.

Appointment of Robert J. Trier as chief of the branch of roads, Bureau of Indian Affairs succeeding J. Maughs Brown, who retires August 31, was announced today by Acting Secretary of the Interior Ralph A. Tudor.

WASHINGTON – The Secretarial Commission on Indian Trust Administration and Reform will hold its final public meeting on Nov. 20, 2013, via webinar. The Commission is completing a comprehensive evaluation of the Department of the Interior’s management and administration of Indian trust assets within a two-year period and will offer recommendations to the Secretary of the Interior of how to improve in the future.

Ben Reifel, a former South Dakota Congressman and an enrolled member of the Rosebud Sioux Tribe, has accepted a "recess appointment" as Commissioner of Indian Affairs.

President Ford announced the appointment of Reifel December 7 following a recommendation by Secretary of the Interior Thomas S. Kleppe. Reifel succeeds Morris Thompson who left the post November 3 to return to Alaska as Vice President of the Alcan Pipeline Co.

Reifel will take the oath of office in a ceremony in Secretary Kleppe's office at 3:30 p.m. today.

Commissioner of Indian Affairs Louis R. Bruce today announced that American Airlines will purchase 20,000 blankets manufactured from the wool of Navajo Indian sheep.

The blankets, made similar to the famed trade cloth imported from England, will bear three-inch square label showing their origin and will be attested to by both Commissioner Bruce, a Mohawk-Sioux Indian, and Peter MacDonald, Chairman of the Navajo Tribal Council.

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Secretary of the Interior Sally Jewell today convened the inaugural meeting of the White House Council on Native American Affairs, launching President Obama’s national policy initiative to make federal agencies work more collaboratively and effectively with federally recognized tribes to advance their vital economic and social priorities.

Proposed regulations to better protect the per capita shares of minors, legal incompetents and deceased beneficiaries of Indian judgment funds were published in the Federal Register on November 1975, Commissioner of Indian Affairs Morris Thompson announced today.

Secretary of the Interior Manuel Lujan said today his Department looks forward to a major role in implementing the America the Beautiful initiative in President Bush's fiscal year 1991 budget. "With increased funding for land acquisition, recreation enhancement and resource protection, the President shows his strong commitment to meeting the diverse Federal land management challenges of the 1990s," Lujan said.

WASHINGTON – The U.S. Department of the Interior announced today a proposal to create an administrative procedure and criteria that the Secretary of the Interior would apply if the Native Hawaiian community forms a unified government that then seeks a formal government-to-government relationship with the United States.

New regulations governing retail business and credit transactions at trading posts on the Navajo, Hopi and Zuni Reservations have been published in the Federal Register, Commissioner of Indian Affairs Morris Thompson announced today.

The purpose of the new regulations is to protect Indian consumers against excessive interest rates, high prices and other abuses.