Past News Items

The Bureau of Indian Affairs has announced that it is reinstituting comprehensive stock reduction efforts, including impoundment when necessary, in the former Navajo-Hopi Joint Use area.

Impoundment as a means of livestock reduction was discontinued May 11, at the request of Navajo Tribal Chairman Peter MacDonald for a discussion of procedures and issues. The BIA is responsible, under a mandate of the Navajo-Hopi Land Settlement Act (P.L. 93-531), for keeping the number of livestock within the carrying capacity of the range in the now partitioned areas.

WASHINGTON, DC – With a transfer of nearly $1 million, the Department of the Interior today announced that total contributions to the Cobell Education Scholarship Fund have surpassed $5 million for 2014. The Scholarship Fund was authorized by the historic Cobell Settlement and is funded in part by the Land Buy-Back Program for Tribal Nations (Buy-Back Program). The Scholarship Fund will provide financial assistance through scholarships to American Indian and Alaska Native students wishing to pursue post-secondary education and training.

Dale M. Baldwin, a career employee of 17 years' service, will head the Bureau of Indian Affairs area office in Portland, Oregon, the Department of the Interior has announced.

The transfer from his present post as Superintendent of the Nevada Indian Agency at Stewart, Nev., will be effective March 20, 1966.

In 1965 Baldwin was cited for outstanding performance during his five years of work with the 26 tribal groups throughout Nevada.

Ken Smith, a Wasco Indian from Oregon nominated by President Reagan to be the Department of Interior's Assistant Secretary for Indian Affairs, told members of the Senate Select Indian Affairs Committee his ''beliefs and philosophy" on Indian matters at a confirmation hearing April 28.

With tribal council members from Smith's Warm Springs Reservation in full regalia in the hearing room, Smith expressed his belief "in the strengths of Indian people which have enabled them to endure and survive as a people through adversities and oppressions unparalleled in history."

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Assistant Secretary – Indian Affairs Kevin K. Washburn today announced that he has approved the Northern Cheyenne Tribe’s probate code and that the Department of the Interior’s Office of Hearings and Appeals (OHA) will now apply the code when probating trust or restricted lands within the Northern Cheyenne Reservation in Montana. Codes such as the Northern Cheyenne’s allow tribes to determine how trust or restricted land within the reservation passes to heirs upon an individual’s death.

Robert Schoning, Oregon State Fisheries Director, and Thor Tollefson, Director of the Washington State Department of Fisheries, conferred this week with top officials of the Department of the Interior in Washington to explore possibilities of cooperatively developing regulations that would recognize and provide for Indian off-reservation treaty fishing rights.

Governor Tom McCall of Oregon, at whose request the meeting was held, was unable to attend because of adverse flying weather.

Perry D. Parton, a member of the Pawnee Tribe, has been named Superintendent of the Bureau of Indian Affairs' Jicarilla agency at Dulce, New Mexico, Commissioner of Indian Affairs William Hallett announced today.

Parton has been field Representative for the Zuni agency since January of 1978. He had previously been Administrative Manager of the Colorado River and Hopi agencies.

A United States Air Force veteran, Parton worked for Lockheed Aircraft and other private employers as an accountant, industrial relations representative and in other administrative roles.

"The Bureau of Indian Affairs Office of Justice Services respects the rights of tribes and citizens to express their views in a peaceful and lawful manner. The presence of additional BIA law enforcements officers at Standing Rock was provided at the request of tribal leadership. The responsibility of BIA law enforcement officers is to protect the peace and provide for the safety and well-being of the citizens of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe and individuals within the territory of the Standing Rock Indian Reservation."

-DOI-

The Department of the Interior has recommended enactment of Federal legislation to establish a special three-judge Federal District Court to settle a disputed boundary between the Navajo and Ute Mountain Indian Tribes in New Mexico. Several millions of dollars are at stake.

The disputed area is a strip of land immediately south of the Colorado border approximately two miles wide and ten and one-half miles long. The United States holds the title to the area in trust for one of the two tribes and both claim it.

The dispute developed from the following facts:

Richmond, Virginia’s Junior ROTC Unit of John F. Kennedy High School presented $200 to the Navajo Indians at the U.S. Department of the Interior Building in Washington, D.C. December 27. Accepting the cheek was Interior's Assistant Secretary for Management and Budget Richard S. Bodman. He presently has administrative control of all Indian operations for the Department of the Interior.

In accepting the donation Assistant Secretary Bodman commended the ROTC Unit for their deep interest in helping their fellow Americans who may be less fortunate.