Past News Items

The final environmental impact statement for the Westmoreland Resources
Crow Ceded Area coal leases, pertaining to more than 30,000 acres of land in
Bighorn County, Montana, is now available to the public, Commissioner of
Indian Affairs Ben Reifel announced today.

Dollar volume of contracts with Indian tribes and individuals for goods and services -- excluding construction -- by the bureau of Indian Affairs has reached $29.5 million in fiscal year 1972, Secretary of the Interior Rogers C. B. Morton announced today.

Another $12 million in contracts for goods and services to Indian tribes and individuals is anticipated by the close of the current fiscal year.

WASHINGTON, DC- On Wednesday, November 13, President Obama will host the White House Tribal Nations Conference at the Department of the Interior. The conference will provide leaders from the 566 federally recognized tribes the opportunity to interact directly with the President and members of the White House Council on Native American Affairs. Each federally recognized tribe will be invited to send one representative to the conference.

Interior's Assistant Secretary for Indian Affairs Forrest J. Gerard has extended the November 28 deadline during which the Crow Tribe was to establish a coal negotiating committee and has directed Bureau of Indian Affairs officials in Montana to continue efforts to help the Crow Tribe to establish a committee that would be supported by the major interest groups of the tribe.

Articles of incorporation for the first three Regional Corporations authorized by the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act, have been approved by the Department of the Interior.

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Following extensive consultations with American Indian leaders, the Department of the Interior today made a number of announcements related to the significant efforts underway for the purchase of fractional interests in American Indian trust lands from willing sellers.

Marcellus M. Chouteau, a member of the Kaw Indian Tribe, has been named Superintendent of the Bureau of Indian Affairs agency at Pawnee, Oklahoma, Commissioner of Indian Affairs Morris Thompson announced today.

Chouteau, who has been Program Officer for the Anadarko Area (Western Oklahoma and Kansas), succeeds James Hale who has retired. A World War II Army veteran, Chouteau has worked for the Bureau since 1964. He has held increasingly responsible positions, mostly in accounting and fiscal fields, in Washington, D.C., Muskogee, Oklahoma, and Albuquerque, New Mexico.

Secretary of the Interior Douglas McKay today announced that the Bureau of Indian Affairs on or before June 15 will conduct a poll by mail among members of the Choctaw Tribe of Oklahoma in order to have an expression of their views regarding the selection of a principal chief. The term of the present principal chief expires June 30.

WASHINGTON, D.C. – As part of President Obama’s Generation Indigenous (“Gen-I”) and Tiwahe initiatives, Assistant Secretary – Indian Affairs Kevin K. Washburn today announced he is calling for September 10 to be known as Hope for Life Day to raise awareness in Indian Country about suicide prevention during National Suicide Prevention Awareness Month. Suicide strikes Native youth especially hard. The suicide rate among American Indians ages 15 to 34 is more than two times higher than the national average.

The Department of the Interior is publishing in the Federal Register a notice that 120,681.25 acres of lands formerly under the jurisdiction of the Bureau of Land Management will be held in trust by the United States for the Navajo Indians, for use in connection with an irrigation project.