Past News Items

Washington, D.C. * 11:00AM – The First Lady will deliver remarks at the first-ever Tribal Youth Gathering. The event will take place at the Renaissance Hotel in Washington, DC. This event – cohosted by UNITY Inc., the largest Native youth organization in the country – focuses on creating a national dialogue around wellness, education, and opportunity for tribal youth. In her remarks, Mrs.

Commissioner of Indian Affairs Morris Thompson announced today that Rebecca H. Dotson, a Navajo woman, has been appointed Superintendent of the Bureau of Indian Affairs' agency at Chinle, Arizona.

Ms. Dotson is the second Indian woman to hold an agency superintendent's position. She had been the education program administrator at the agency, one of five on the Navajo Reservation.

Ms. Dotson, 45, is a graduate of the Northern Arizona University and has a Master's degree from Arizona State University. Much of her career has been spent as a classroom teacher.

Appointment of Robert D. Holtz as area director for the Bureau of Indian Affairs at Minneapolis, Minn., was announced today by Acting Secretary of the Interior Clarence A. Davis. He succeeds E. Morgan Pryse who retires from the Bureau December 31, after 35 years of service.

Holtz has been assistant area director at Minneapolis since last July. He first came with the Bureau in 1931 as a forest ranger with the Klamath Agency in Oregon and later served in the same capacity at Zuni Agency in New Mexico, and as forest supervisor at the Papago Agency, Sells, Ariz.

WASHINGTON – The Secretarial Commission on Indian Trust Administration and Reform will hold the sixth in a series of public meetings on June 7, 2013, in Oklahoma City, Okla., to gather information towards developing a comprehensive evaluation of the Department of the Interior’s management and administration of Indian trust assets.

Secretary of the Interior Cecil D. Andrus announced today that he has decided to take no action on the proposed Navajo-El Paso/Consolidation Coal lease and mining plan until the royalty rate is renegotiated.

In a letter to Peter MacDonald, chairman, of the Navajo Tribal Council, Andrus said: "I have concluded that, as trustee, I cannot approve a lease which would return to the beneficiaries of the trust less than I would be required by law to charge for the trustee's, in this case the Nation's, identical resources."

Robert Bruce McKee, Administrative Officer at the Sisseton Indian Reservation in South Dakota, was named today by Acting Commissioner of Indian Affairs W. Barton Greenwood to be the new Superintendent at Fort Berthold Reservation in North Dakota. Mr. McKee succeeds Ralph M. Shane who resigned effective July 29 to go into the newspaper business in New Town, North Dakota.

The vacancy at Sisseton caused by Mr. McKee's promotion will be filled by Wray P. Hughes who is now Administrative Officer at Cheyenne River Indian Reservation in South Dakota.

WASHINGTON, D.C. – President Obama’s Fiscal Year 2016 budget request for Indian Affairs, which includes the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) and the Bureau of Indian Education (BIE), is $2.9 billion – a $323.5 million, or 12 percent increase from the FY2015 enacted level.

Commissioner of Indian Affairs Morris Thompson announced today that the lists of all adult persons (18 and over) of Osage Indian descent are being prepared by the Bureau of Indian Affairs. One will contain the names and known addresses of persons of at least 1/4 degree Osage blood; the other will list Osage descendant persons possessing less than 1/4 degree of Osage blood and their known addresses.

The lists will be used to conduct a poll among the Osage Indians to determine whether a change in the present structure of the Osage tribal government is desired.

Secretary of the Interior Douglas McKay announced today that he has appointed a three-man team to investigate the collapse of a footbridge on the East Cherokee Indian Reservation in North Carolina on July 3.

Members of the team left today to confer with James H. Baley, Jr., United States District Attorney at Asheville, No Co, Richard D. Butts, Superintendent of the Cherokee Indian Reservation, and Frank Parker, General Counsel for the Cherokee Indians.

Washington, D.C. - Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar today lauded Senate approval of legislation to authorize implementation of the Cobell Settlement, a $3.4 billion agreement that will resolve the long-running and highly contentious class action lawsuit regarding the U.S. government's trust management and accounting of individual American Indian trust accounts.