Past News Items

President Nixon’s historic special message to Congress on Indians is a brass-tacks, straight forward statement of what the Nation and its Indian people need in working together toward a better future for all.

It is a time we listen to what the Indians have been telling us.

Like all Americans, they want social justice, education, health care and a chance to choose their own kind of life.

But their problems are special—and so is our responsibility to them.

WASHINGTON, D.C. – The Bureau of Indian Affairs Office of Justice Services (OJS) will hold its fourth training session to improve the trial advocacy skills of tribal court prosecutors, defenders and judges on October 23-25, 2012, in Chinle, Ariz., on the Navajo Nation Reservation. This training will focus on cases dealing with domestic violence.

Secretary of the Interior Cecil D. Andrus today released a draft supplement to the 1974 final environmental impact statement covering Executive Branch alternatives for protecting Alaska National Interest Lands until Congress can take final action.

Secretary of the Interior Walter J. Hickel announced today that the first meeting of the Pyramid Lake Task Force will be held October 16 at Reno. The Task Force includes representatives of the Department of the Interior and the States of California and Nevada.

The Task Force will study water allocations in the Truckee-Carson Basin and develop a plan intended to satisfy various water demands in the area.

WASHINGTON -- Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar today applauded President Obama’s intent to nominate Vincent G. Logan, a member of the Osage Nation, as the next Special Trustee for American Indians.

With the salmon spawning run on the Klamath River in California nearly over, the Department of the Interior announced today that it is opening portions of the river to Indian subsistence fishing.

With an appropriation of $87,050,000 for the fiscal year beginning July 1, an increase of $7,346,502 over the current year total, the Bureau of Indian Affairs will expand and improve its operations along several major lines, Commissioner of Indian Affairs Glenn L, Emmons said today.

WASHINGTON – Assistant Secretary-Indian Affairs Larry Echo Hawk issued the following statement today on the passing of Elouise Cobell:

“Indian Country, as well as the entire nation, has lost a champion of human rights. Elouise Cobell battled to make our country acknowledge historical wrongdoing, and she spoke truth to power so that justice could prevail.

Theopule L. Traversie, a former Chairman of the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe, has been named Superintendent of the Bureau of Indian Affairs' Cheyenne River Agency at Eagle Butte, South Dakota.

Traversie was formerly in the BIA's Portland Area Office where he worked as a loan specialist. A United States Navy veteran, Traversie earned a degree in business administration in 1963 from Northern State College in Aberdeen, South Dakota and completed law studies at the University of South Dakota in 1966.

A new set of grazing regulations for the huge Navajo Indian Reservation of Arizona, New Mexico and Utah, providing for greater Indian participation in administration and enforcement, was announced today by Acting Secretary of the Interior Clarence A. Davis.