Past News Items

Acting Secretary of the Interior Elmer F. Bennett today called attention to the results of the first sale of oil and gas leases held by the Bureau of Indian Affairs on the basis of a fixed bonus of $500 per acre and competitive bidding on the royalty rates. The bids were opened at Window Rock, Arizona, July 28. The total bonus offered at $500 per acre was $1,245,500.

WASHINGTON - The U.S. Department of the Interior (DOI) today issued the following statement relating to a DOI notification to federal court officials on behalf of Assistant Secretary - Indian Affairs Neal A. McCaleb. “

The Bureau of Indian Affairs has awarded an $83,305 contract for grading and surfacing 8.25 miles of roadway on the Klamath Indian Reservation in southern Oregon, the Department of the Interior announced today.

WASHINGTON, D.C. – The Department of the Interior (DOI) will continue its schedule of presentations to employees of the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) and the Office of the Special Trustee for American Indians (OST) on the reorganization of both agencies. This week, employees of the Navajo Region will be briefed on June 6 at the Navajo Nation Museum Auditorium in Window Rock, Ariz. The Department is seeking to increase accountability and efficiency in its trust management functions by reorganizing the agencies that manage Indian trust funds and assets.

The Department of the Interior announced today that it has submitted to Congress a proposal for legislation exempting from Federal and State income tax the payments of more than $26,000,000 which the Government has made to four Pacific Northwest Indian tribes to compensate them for the loss of their fishing rights at Celilo Falls on the Columbia River.

The tribes involved are the Yakima of Washington, the Warm Springs and Umatilla of Oregon, and the Nez Perce of Idaho.

Washington - The Department of the Interior's Assistant Secretary-Indian Affairs Neal McCaleb has named Daniel J. DuBray, a member of the Rosebud Sioux Tribe, as his Special Assistant for Communications - Indian Affairs.

"Dan will be a valuable asset to Indian Affairs with his extensive media and Capitol Hill experience, and his understanding of American Indian issues," McCaleb said.

Completion of the final membership roll of the Wyandotte Indian Tribe of Oklahoma, following the disposition of all appeals, was announced today by the Department of the Interior.

The preliminary membership roll, published in the Federal Register April 5, 1957, included 1,159 individuals. The net result of additions and subtractions made as a consequence of appeals to the Secretary of the Interior is a final roll of 1,154 names.

WASHINGTON – In a speech before tribal leaders this week on improving economic conditions in Indian Country, Assistant Secretary – Indian Affairs Neal A. McCaleb called on tribes to choose prosperity over poverty. “We can choose between poverty and prosperity,” McCaleb said. “Most of us would choose prosperity, so why has Indian America remained mired in poverty?” The Assistant Secretary spoke on June 18 at the National Congress of American Indians (NCAI) 2002 Mid-Year Conference in Bismarck, N.D.

American Indians, widely considered a vanishing race in the early years of the present century, are now increasing at a faster rate than the whole United States population, the Bureau of Indian Affairs of the Department of the Interior reported today.

The annual growth rate for the Nation's Indian population during the decade of the 1950's was about 2.5 percent as compared with 1.7 percent for the entire country.

Transmittal Letter From Secretary Norton Full Report Chart of Key Dates List of Task Force Members Photograph

(WASHINGTON) – Interior Assistant Secretary – Indian Affairs Neal A. McCaleb and Tex Hall, chairman of the Three Affiliated Tribes of North Dakota, presented to Interior Secretary Gale Norton today the Joint Tribal Leaders/DOI Task Force on Trust Reform's five options for improving the department's management of Indian trust funds and assets. McCaleb and Hall are Task Force co-chairs.