Past News Items

A new environmental awareness award program for Indian schools and communities was announced today by Commissioner of Indian Affairs Louis R. Bruce. The program is an outgrowth of new emphases upon environment and conservation in Bureau of Indian Affairs schools. It is designed to encourage environmental awareness throughout all aspects of daily life in the community.

WASHINGTON – Deputy Assistant Secretary-Indian Affairs Donald “Del” Laverdure, acting on behalf of Assistant Secretary – Indian Affairs Larry Echo Hawk who was travelling, issued on July 2, 2010, a proposed finding not to acknowledge the petitioner known as the Choctaw Nation of Florida (Petitioner #288) as an Indian tribe. The petitioner, located in Marianna, Fla., has approximately 77 members. It claims to be a group of Choctaw Indians that migrated from North Carolina to Georgia, and then Florida following the Indian removal of the 1830s.

The need for families in Hooper Bay, Alaska, to send their children away from home to get a high school education will be ended, Commissioner of Indian Affairs Morris Thompson announced today. A contract to construct a new, $3.2 million high school complex has been awarded by the Bureau of Indian Affairs to the Walsh Construction Company of Anchorage, Alaska.

The new school is designed to serve 100 students in the 9th through 12th grades. The BIA now operates an elementary school with an enrollment of more than 200 in the area.

Fleming Begaye, Sr., 47, Chinle, Arizona, a Navajo Indian, was presented the Indian Small Businessman of the Year award May 17, by Commissioner of Indian Affairs Louis R. Bruce. The ceremony took place in the auditorium of the Bureau of Indian Affairs, Washington, D. C. as a part of Small Business Week, May 17 - 21.

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Assistant Secretary-Indian Affairs Larry Echo Hawk today announced that he has named Michael S. Black as Director of the Bureau of Indian Affairs. Black, an enrolled member of the Oglala Sioux Tribe in South Dakota, had been serving as the acting BIA Director since March 18, 2010. He takes over from Jerold L. “Jerry” Gidner who is now the Special Counselor in the Office of the Assistant Secretary-Indian Affairs. Black’s appointment became effective on April 25, 2010.

The United States Department of Justice informed a Federal Court February 28 that it intended to follow a modified Interior Department recommendation to pursue Passamaquoddy and Penobscot Indian claims to millions of acres of land in the State of Maine.

Interior's recommendation updates a draft litigation report sent to the Justice Department in January. The February 25 report, signed by Frederick N. Ferguson, Acting Deputy Solicitor for Interior, still asks for the return of land as well as trespass damages. It includes, however, two changes agreed to by the tribes.

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar today lauded the final approval of the Cobell settlement and outlined steps that Interior will take to help implement the historic $3.4 billion settlement. The settlement resolves a long-running class action lawsuit regarding the U.S. government's trust management and historical accounting of individual American Indian trust accounts. It became final on November 24, 2012, following action by the Supreme Court and expiration of the appeal period.

Secretary of the Interior Cecil D. Andrus today signed an order restoring to the Quechan Indians 25,000 acres of land within the original 1884 boundaries of the Fort Yuma Reservation in Arizona and California.

A new emergency program for distributing feed grains to Indian stockmen in previously designated drought-stricken areas of the Southwest was announced today by the Departments of Agriculture and the Interior.