Past News Items

The Interior Department’s Minerals Management Service has awarded one of the largest tribal contracts in history to a 100% owned American Indian business. The $100 million contract, awarded to Wyandotte NetTel, offers telecommunications and information technology products and services to the federal government.

In today’s ceremony in Washington, D.C., executives from Wyandotte NetTel, the Department of the Interior’s Bureau of Indian Affairs and the Minerals Management Service, and the Small Business Administration celebrated the contract agreement.

Development of both human and natural resources on Indian reservations will be the prime objective for the Bureau of Indian Affairs under the Kennedy Administration, Commissioner Philleo Nash told an audience in Denver, Colorado, Tuesday evening.

Visiting in Denver for a nationwide conference on Indian Bureau superintendents, the new Commissioner, woe entered on duty September 26, spoke on “The New Trail for American Indians” before a meeting of the Indian Visitors of the American Friends Service Committee.

Speaking on Monday, December 18, 2000, at the opening of the Bureau of Indian Affairs’ (BIA) new offices in Reston, Virginia, Assistant Secretary-Indian Affairs Kevin Gover pondered on what Ely S. Parker, the first American Indian to be appointed Commissioner of Indian Affairs, would think of being honored 130 years after his tenure by the naming of a Department of the Interior building for him. Mr.

Connecting Indian Country to broadband and energy transmission throughout reservations, pueblos, villages, and communities, is a priority of Indian Affairs. The digital divide in Indian Country will continue to grow, absent any federal assistance.

It is good to be back at the University of Toronto—this time as a guest rather than an employee. I still have many warm memories of the four years I spent here as a lecturer in anthropology from 1937 to 1941. So I am especially grateful for the opportunity of corning back to renew old acquaintances and establish new ones in this outstanding Canadian academic institution.

WASHINGTON, D.C. – President Bush’s pledge on education that “no child shall be left behind” was reaffirmed today with the release of his Fiscal Year 2002 budget request of $2.2 billion for the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA).The request includes $292.5 million for BIA school construction – an increase of $162,000 over the 2001 enacted level – of which $122.8 million is to replace six aging BIA school facilities around the country, including the Ojibwa Indian School located in Belcourt, N.D.

In June, the Governing Board at the National Interagency Fire Center selected the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA), Fort Apache Agency and the Coronado National Forest, Sierra Vista Ranger District to be recipients of the 2019 Pulaski Award. This marks the first time BIA has received this prestigious award.

The Department of the Interior today announced the completion of an Indian-approved property distribution plan for the Redding Rancheria in Shasta County, California, under terms of a 1958 law.

Under the 1958 enactment the group property of the rancheria, consisting mainly of 30.89 acres of land, was divided among the 44 Indian beneficiaries in accordance with a plan approved by the Indians in referendum ballot. In all cases, unrestricted title was conveyed to the Indians.

The Confederated Tribes of the Warm Springs Reservation of Oregon (Tribes), Portland General Electric Company (PGE), and the U.S. Department of the Interior today approved an agreement providing for the Tribes and PGE to share the 408-megawatt Pelton Round Butte hydroelectric project near Madras, Ore. Before the signing of the agreement, Warm Springs tribal elder, Delvis Heath, provided a beautiful traditional blessing for the ceremony.

Members of Tribes overwhelmingly approved the agreement in a referendum election held on March 28, 2000.

On July 25, 2008 a felling accident occurred on the Eagle Fire of the Iron Complex located on the Shasta Trinity National Forest. This accident, commonly known as the Dutch Creek Serious Accident, killed firefighter Andrew “Andy” Palmer and forever changed how the wildland fire community prepares for and responds to medical incidents.