Past News Items

WASHINGTON – The Office of the Assistant Secretary – Indian Affairs is announcing a corrected schedule of dates for the upcoming openings of Missing and Murdered Native Americans Cold Case Task Force offices in August.

The correct dates with locations are:

Legislation to lift mineral lease limitations that have hampered the development of Indian tribal lands has been submitted to Congress by the Department of the Interior, Assistant Secretary Roger C. Ernst announced today.

Specifically, the proposed legislation would remove the 10-year limit on nonproducing leases which, Assistant Secretary Ernst said, prevents tribes in some cases from realizing the full benefit of their mineral assets.

WASHINGTON – Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary – Indian Affairs Aurene M. Martin today issued a Final Determination in which she declined to acknowledge as an Indian tribe a group known as the Webster/Dudley Band of Chaubunagungamaug Nipmuck Indians (CB) from Dudley, Mass.

WASHINGTON – Assistant Secretary of Indian Affairs Tara Katuk Sweeney today announced the establishment of the Bureau of Trust Funds Administration (BTFA) which will report directly to her office. The new BTFA will assume responsibility for financial operations and functions currently performed by the Office of the Special Trustee for American Indians (OST) effective today.

Of the 31,259 Indian people who have moved away from their reservations to western and Midwestern cities since 1952 with help provided under the relocation services program of the Bureau of Indian Affairs of the Department of the Interior, about 70 percent have become self-supporting in their new homes, Commissioner Glenn L. Emmons reported today.

“The Department of the Interior has a zero tolerance policy regarding drinking and driving by its employees. In March 2004, the Bureau of Indian Affairs strengthened its policies and procedures that govern its employees’ use of government-owned vehicles and is committed to taking additional measures to ensure that this will not happen again. The Bureau of Indian Affairs extends its deepest condolences to the families of Larry and Rita Beller and Edward and Alice Ramaekers.”

Secretary of the Interior Fred A. Seaton announced today approval of a recommendation made by Commissioner of Indian Affairs Glenn L. Emmons for transfer of the Department’s function of approving contracts between attorneys and Indian tribes. Commissioner Emmons recommended that the function be shifted from the Bureau of Indian Affairs to the Office of the Solicitor of the Department.

The transfer will be effected as soon as the necessary order has been developed and formally approved by the Secretary.

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary – Indian Affairs Aurene M. Martin today announced that the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) will be holding a series of tribal consultation meetings on the realignment of the BIA’s 12 regional offices. The realignment is a result of the reorganization currently taking place within the Office of the Assistant Secretary – Indian Affairs, the BIA and the Office of the Special Trustee for American Indians.

Final approval of an extensive revision of the Federal regulations on the management of Indian forest lands was announced today by the Department of the Interior.

Among other changes, the new rules provide a system of appeal to the Secretary of the Interior from decisions made by the Bureau of Indian Affairs on timber sales contracts.

WASHINGTON – Interior’s new Assistant Secretary – Indian Affairs, David W. Anderson, pledged to work with tribes for the betterment of Indian people and to put greater emphasis on supporting Bureau of Indian Affairs employees in the field during his public swearing-in ceremony today with Secretary Gale Norton. Accompanied by his sister in full tribal dress who held a bible for his swearing-in, Anderson took the oath of office administered by Secretary Norton in front of over 100 attendees comprised of tribal officials and departmental employees.