Past News Items

WASHINGTON – Assistant Secretary-Indian Affairs Larry Echo Hawk today announced that the Bureau of Indian Education, Haskell Indian Nations University (HINU) in Lawrence, Kan., and the Haskell Indian National Board of Regents have formed a partnership to develop a post secondary education learning model to improve the educational experience of Haskell students. HINU is one of two BIE-operated post secondary institutions of higher learning for American Indians and Alaska Natives.

Secretary of the Interior Rogers C. B. Morton today announced an encompassing decision on the controversy involving leases and exploratory permits for coal development on the Northern Cheyenne Indian reservation in Montana.

The Northern Cheyenne Tribe petitioned the Secretary in January 1974 to withdraw the Department’s approval of leases and exploratory permits for strip mining of coal on about 214,000 acres of the 433,740-acre reservation.

Proposed regulations establishing procedures for Indian tribes seeking to form tribal constitutions or charters or make changes in existing ones are being published in the Federal Register, the Bureau of Indian Affairs announced today.

WASHINGTON, D.C. - President Obama’s proposed $12 billion budget for the Department of the Interior in FY2010 will allow the nation’s largest land manager to play a central role in carrying out the President’s vision for addressing the challenges of our times, Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar said today.

WASHINGTON, D. c., Nov. 19 - The American Indian National Bank, the first institution of its kind, has opened for business at 1701 Pennsylvania Avenue, N. W. in the nation's capital.

Interior Secretary Cecil ·D. Andrus said today that the proposed Department of Natural Resources (DNR) will provide a more orderly process for deciding which Federal land will be developed and which will be protected as wilderness.

Andrus said the current Federal organization makes it difficult to assemble and fully analyze the information choices available.

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar will hold a media roundtable tomorrow – Friday, Feb. 20, 2009 -- to discuss how the department will swiftly and responsibly implement President Obama’s economic recovery plan in order to help create jobs, generate economic activity in local communities, and renew our national parks, national wildlife refuges and other public lands and resources.

Cam1issioner of Indian Affairs Morris Thompson today announced the awarding of two contracts accounting to nearly $9 million in Federal money for Bureau of Indian Affairs day schools at Acomita, New Mexico, and Wanblee, South Dakota.

"These two schools, when completed, will serve a need that has existed for many years," Thompson said.

A plan for the use and distribution of $600,000 awarded to the Seneca Nation of Indians by the Indian Claims Commission is being published in the Federal Register, the Bureau of Indian Affairs said today.

The award fa compensation for leased lands within the Allegany Reservation in New York State. The major portion, of the leased lands are within the boundaries of the City of Salamanca.

According to the plan, approved by Congress and made effective February l, 1979, 80 percent of the award will be distributed on a per capita basis to members of the Seneca Nation.

WASHINGTON – Assistant Secretary – Indian Affairs Carl J. Artman today announced he has appointed Montana attorney Majel Russell, an enrolled member of the Crow Tribe of Montana, as his new Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary – Indian Affairs. Russell succeeds George T. Skibine, the acting principle deputy assistant secretary since April 2, 2007, who will continue in his current position as director of the Indian Affairs Office of Indian Gaming Management. Russell’s appointment became effective on August 20, 2007.