OPA

An American Indian planning committee has set three goals for a White House Pre-conference dealing with library services on reservations, Dr. William Demmert, Director of the Bureau of Indian Affairs' Office of Indian Education announced today.

Goals for the session to be held next October in Denver are to raise awareness among Indian people of the value of libraries, to help develop a consensus on a long-range plan to improve library services on reservations and to provide an organized Indian contribution to the subsequent White House Conference on Library and Information Services.

The planning committee is composed of thirteen American Indians who have demonstrated concern for Indian library and information services and who represent a cross section of Indian people.

Staff support for the groups is provided through the BIA's Office of Indian Education and the Interior Department's Office of Library and Information Services.

Members of the Committee are: Maxine Edmo (Shoshone-Bannock), Ft. Hall Education Council, Ft. Hall, Idaho; Anthony D. Genia (Ottawa/Choctaw), Minnesota Indian Consortium for Higher Education, Hamline University, St. Paul, Minnesota; David Gipp (Sioux), Educational and Technical Center, United Tribes of North Dakota, Bismarck, North Dakota; Joseph Hardy (Navajo}, Navajo Small Business Development Corporation, Ft. Defiance, Arizona.

Calvin Issac (Choctaw), Chairman, Choctaw Tribe, Philadelphia, Mississippi; Dr. Cheryl Metoyer (Cherokee), School of Library and Information Science, University of California at Los Angeles; David Risling (Hoopa), Deganawidah-Quetzcoa:tl University Davis, California; Joseph "Bud" Sahmaunt (Kiowa), Oklahoma City University, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma: Lotsee Smith (Comanche), College of Education, University of New Mexico.

Pete Soto (Cocopah), Phoenix Area Office, Bureau of Indian Affairs; Minerva C. White (Mohawk), Native American Special Services, St. Lawrence University, Canton, New York; Marilyn Youngbird (Arikara), Colorado Commission on Indian Affairs, Denver, Colorado: and Virginia H. Mathews (Osage), Chairman of the Pre-Conference, Director of Gaylord Professional Publications, Syracuse, New York.

The Bureau of Indian Affairs has received petitions from forty Indian groups seeking to be acknowledged by the Federal Government as Indian tribes. A list of the forty groups, from 21 states, is being published in the Federal Register as required by regulations made effective October 2, 1978. These regulations establish the procedures for establishing that an American Indian group exists as an American Indian Tribe.

A total of 496.Indian or Alaska Native groups are now acknowledged by the Federal Government to be tribes. These groups are located in 27 states and include 218 Alaskan Village groups. Under the regulations only those groups whose members and their ancestors existed in tribal relations since aboriginal times and have retained some aspects of their tribal sovereignty can be acknowledged as tribes. Failure to be acknowledged under these regulations would not constitute a denial that this group is Indian. Acknowledgment of tribal existence is a prerequisite to the protection, services and benefits from the Federal Government available to Indian tribes.

Groups from seven states, not presently listing any federally recognized tribes, are among the petitioners. These states are Alabama, Connecticut, Delaware, Georgia, Maryland, Massachusetts, and South Carolina. Other states represented by petitioners are: Alaska, California, Colorado, Florida, Kansas, Louisiana, Michigan, Montana, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, North Dakota, Oregon and Washington.

A list of the groups seeking Federal recognition is attached.

Charles M. Soller, Department of Interior assistant solicitor for Indian Affairs, died of cancer October 25 in Washington, D.C. He had been a key legal adviser to the Bureau of Indian Affairs for 20 years.

Seller received in September of this year the Interior Department's Superior Service Award for his work on behalf of Alaska Natives under the Alaska Native Claim Settlement Act. His compassion and sensitive response to need were cited in the award.

A native of Washington, Kansas, Soller was a graduate of the University of Kansas and the Michigan University Law School. He was an assistant attorney general for the State of Colorado before joining the Interior Department in 1954 as a regional counsel of the Bureau of Land Management in Alaska.

His family asked that expressions of sympathy be in the form of contributions to a Charles M. Soller Alaska Native Scholarship Fund, administered by the Commissioner of Indian Affairs.

Richard C. Whitesell, a member of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, has been appointed Assistant Area Director, Community Services, in the BIA's Phoenix Area Office, Commissioner of Indian Affairs Morris Thompson announced today.

Whitesell has been Superintendent of the Flandreau Indian School at Flandreau, South Dakota.

A former marine, Whitesell was Education Program Administrator at Riverside Indian School in Oklahoma before going to Flandreau. He began
his career as an educator in the Brockton, Montana schools in 1961.

He is a graduate of the North Dakota State College at Dickinson, North Dakota and earned a Masters in Education from South Dakota State University. He completed the Department of Interior's Management Training Program in 1969.

Interior Assistant Secretary for Indian Affairs Forrest Gerard announced today the appointment of George V. Goodwin and Rick C. Lavis as Deputy Assistant Secretaries for Indian Affairs.

Gerard said that organizational changes in the Bureau of Indian Affairs to create the double deputy positions were recently approved.

Goodwin has been functioning as an Acting Deputy and Lavis as a consultant in the Assistant Secretary’s Office. Goodwin, a member of the White Earth Chippewa Tribe, was formerly BIA Area Director at Minneapolis. A graduate of Bemidji State College in Minnesota, Goodwin was Executive Director of the Minnesota Chippewa Tribe and, earlier, worked with other groups in the state in community action programs.

Lavis was from 1971 to 1976 legislative assistant and administrative assistant to Arizona’s Senator Paul Fannin. In this position he worked closely with Gerard, then a professional member of a Senate committee staff in the development of the important Indian-related legislation of this decade --including the Indian Self-Determination Act, Indian Health Care Improvement Act and the Indian Education Act. An Arizona State University graduate, Lavis was honored by the National Congress of American Indians at its fourth annual awards dinner: as a key legislative staff member.

Under the revised BIA organizational plan, Goodwin will have primary responsibility for management and administrative functions of the Bureau and Lavis will be responsible for program operations.

Goodwin will have under his direct supervision. The Office of Administration, which includes financial management, personnel, automatic data processing, contract and grants administration and other management services. He will also supervise the Bureau's Public Information staff, Intergovernmental Relations staff and Correspondence staff.

Lavis will have under him the Bureau's four program offices; Trust Responsibilities, Tribal Resources Development, Indian Services and Indian Education Programs. The Congressional and Legislative Affairs staff and the Indian Self-Determination staff will also be under his supervision.

In the absence of the Assistant Secretary, Goodwin will perform his functions Lavis will act in this capacity when both the Assistant Secretary and Goodwin are absent. Goodwin, 35, was born in White Earth, Minnesota. He did post-graduate studies at the University of New Mexico and the University of North Dakota. He is a member and former officer of the National Congress of American Indian; and has been active in the American Indian Management Institute, Native American Rights Fund and the State of Minnesota Advisory Commission on Economic Development.

Goodwin initiated major developmental changes in the Minnesota Chippewa Tribe in his term as Executive Director. When he began the tribe had four employees and a budget of $90,000. In 1975, when he left the tribe had 85 employees in 17 programs with a budget exceeding $4 million.

Lavis, 37, is a native of Mount Kisco, New York. He majored in political science at Arizona University and did course work toward a law degree at the University of Arizona, where he also served as a teaching assistant. Before joining Senator Paul Fannin's staff he was Director of Development and Alumni Affairs for the Orme School at Mayer, Arizona. In the fall of 1976 he became Legislative Representative in Washington for the El Paso Natural Gas Company.

The Bureau of Indian Affairs has requested an increase of $62.1 million in appropriated funds for fiscal year 1979. The Bureau's request submitted January 23 to Congress as part of the President's budget asks for $949.5 million of Federal appropriation. This includes $761 million for the operation of Indian programs; $86.8 million for the construction of irrigation systems, building and utilities; $71.4 million for road construction, and $30 million payments under the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act.

Federal funding for these purposes in fiscal year 1978 was $846.7 million. The 1979 fiscal year begins October 1, 1978 and ends September 30, 1979:

For Indian education programs --the largest of BIA's programs --$271 million, an increase of $11.1 million, was requested. This includes $41.4 million for higher education assistance grants for approximately 20,000 Indian college students.

The request for $194.7 million for Indian services exceeds 1978 funding by $18.3 million. These funds are used for tribal governments, social services, law enforcement, Indian self-determination programs and housing. The $20.3 million for housing will provide for the building of approximately 430 new homes and the renovation and/or enlargement of about 2,650.

The $70.3 million requested for natural resources development will be used to continue intensive mineral inventories and energy resource development planning. A major program of forest development will be continued and funding of $3.2 million is requested to continue farm unit development work on the Navajo Indian Irrigation Project. The decrease of $7 million is the result of Congressional add-ons and supplemental funding requests for drought emergencies in Fiscal Year 1978 not included in the 1979 request.

The FY 1979 request for $42.4 million for programs to carry out the Federal trust responsibility represents an increase of $7.5 million over FY 1978 trust responsibility role of the Bureau is the cornerstone of Federal- ~l relationships, and one of the primary goals is to strengthen that role.

Interior Assistant Secretary for Indian Affairs Forrest Gerard announced today the appointment of Irene Sparks Rowan as his Special Assistant for Alaskan Affairs.

Rowan, an-enrolled Alaska Native, is President of Kish Tu, Inc., an Alaska-based research and consulting firm. She is also the former elected Chairperson and President of Klukwan, Inc., her Alaska Native village corporation.

Gerard said, "Mrs Rowan's expertise and knowledge of Alaskan affairs will be immensely valuable to me. The implementation of the Alaska Native: Claims Settlement Act now going on together with the other developments in Alaska make this a particularly critical time for the Alaska Natives."

In her work with Kish Tu, Rowan has been responsible for the preparation and publication of socio-economic reports on Alaska Natives. She has designed and conducted more than 20 workshops for the State of Alaska, prepared and published a booklet on native villages and was responsible for the campaign to inform Alaska Natives worldwide about the reopening of the Settlement Act enrollment.

Rowan, who is one-half degree Tlingit Indian and a native of Haines, Alaska, was manager of a social research organization, Rowan Group, Inc., from 1972 to 1976. She has been a teacher in the state school system in Bethel, Alaska and was the manager of an Eskimo Arts and Crafts Shop.

A graduate of Western Washington State, she has her B.S. in business education. Her publications include villages Survive? a booklet used as a study tool for the Alaska Federation of Natives convention workshops. She has also published a report on the problems of Alaska Natives in the Anchorage area, a study of changes that have occurred as a result of the Settlement Act and a report of the problems and progress of Alaska Nativei3 and their corporations.

Assistant Secretary Gerard stated that Ms. Rowan will serve a short period of orientation in Alaska before reporting to Washington.

Secretary of the Interior Cecil D. Andrus today announced completion of an eight month process aimed at speeding the conveyance of land to Alaska Native Corporations and smoothing implementation of other parts of the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act.

“This Department has dedicated itself to improved administration of the Settlement Act," Andrus said, “beginning with conveyance of land to Native Corporations on an accelerated basis. We promised Congress we would review and untangle the ANCSA issues and get the Act moving again. The Settlement Act is not only vital to Alaska Natives, but its success is crucial to the social, cultural and economic future of the State and the Nation. The issues we covered ranged from those which affect single villages to those affecting virtually every Native Corporation in the State, but all had to be resolved to make the Act work. We made our decisions based primarily on the principle that this was Native legislation designed to settle claims for their benefit, although we believe the State and others will gain by many of the decisions."

"This review process could not have succeeded without the cooperation of Alaska's Native citizens, the government of the State of Alaska and the Federal-State Land Use Planning Commission. All these parties participated in numerous meetings and offered us good counsel throughout the entire process Secretary Andrus said.

The intensive policy review was forced by the increasingly complicated and contradictory fashion in which the Claims Act was being administered. Although the Act was passed in 1971 no Native Corporation, except in the Arctic Slope region, had received all its land, and most had received little if any, when the review began eight months ago. Alaska Natives are entitled to more than million acres of land under terms of the Act.

The process was further snarled by differing interpretations of language in the Act permitting easements across Native land.

­­Last July Federal District Judge James van der Heydt ruled that the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act is Native legislation which permits easements to be reserved across Native land only at certain points to allow access to nearby public land. Access to Native land is solely up to Native discretion, van der Heydt ruled. The overall effect of this decision was to declare invalid many of the then existing Interior Department easement guidelines.

Under the new Department policies announced today, no continuous coastal easements will be reserved and easements will be placed only on "major" inland rivers, streams or lakes. A “major” waterbody will be determined by a three part test involving significant use of the water for travel, significant commercial use and its overall resource value including recreation fishery and other values. To meet the test at least two of the three criteria must be satisfied for each waterbody or segment thereof.

On any major waterbody, coastal or interior, a limited, non-duplicative system of easements will be established only for the purpose of permitting normal travel on the waterway or to gain access to or from public land nearby.

Uses on such easements will be reasonable, but limited and defined. Secretarial orders to carry out the new guidelines will be issued within 60 days.

Secretary Andrus said the Interior Department would recommend that the Justice Department drop its Federal Court appeal of the van der Heydt decision if the Natives drop their appeal and accept the new easement policies. Andrus reiterated his hope that the State will also accept these new policies.

Acceptance of the new Interior Department policies by the Natives will automatically trigger a process leading to relinquishment by the Department of previously reserved easements that are in conflict with the new policies.

Other major decisions._ announced as a result of the review include:

-- Reorganization of the SLM Alaska Office to create a new and separate office, reporting directly to the State Director, and having responsibility solely to carry out the Settlement Act, with emphasis on prompt land conveyance

--Designation of the Alaska Native Claims Appeals Board as the sole administrative appeals board for the Settlement Act. Rules governing who may appear and who has the burden of proof have been redefined to provide for faster decisions. Court appeals, where necessary, will also be speeded up. There will be an increased use of Administrative Law Judges as well.

-- Native selections from Federal installation land as provided in Sec.

3(e) of the Act will be aided by a more active Department program to encourage Federal owners to identify surplus land. Formal Secretarial decisions will be made on the land available.

-- Native selection of cemetery and historical sites will continue under present guidelines, but areas open to selection will include some land previously withdrawn by the Secretary outside of Native withdrawals, including some land the present Administration Alaska National Interest Lands proposal. Covenants I be placed on this land to limit its future use to the intended purpose.

-- Conveyance of submerged lands will proceed on a case-by-case basis as each selected area is studied to determine whether it meets the criteria for Federal or State land. Federal land, if selected by Natives, is subject to conveyance, State land is not.

-- The Department will ask Native Corporations to rank their land selections in the order they want them conveyed. This will speed up conveyance of the most important lands, and increase the pace of the overall process. The Department will establish a system for reducing over selections based on the proportion of conveyances made and the remaining selection entitlement of each corporation.

-- Land exchange policy will strongly favor exchanges for equal value and be limited to exchanges of land rather than selection rights. Exceptions to the equal value standard may be made by the Secretary.

-- Allocations of selection entitlements among the regional corporations, according to the complex rules of the Settlement Act, will be carried out under a new set of policies and procedures designed to speed conveyance and reach the highest entitlements in each area as soon as possible. Legal uncertainties in some case, such as litigation over village eligibility, will be taken into account.

--The standards for establishment of Native “Groups” will be received and revised in an effort to make them more consistent with the standards for establishing "Villages” The Native Claims Act a11ows Native communities too small to qualify for the Village requirement of 25 people to establish themselves as Groups instead, with a land base pro-rated to the number of people in the community.

Proposed regulations governing the assignment by regional corporations of future interests in the Alaska Native Fund were published March 2 in the Federal Register, Interior Assistant Secretary Forrest Gerard announced today.

The regulations are designed to implement Section 31 of the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act, as amended November 1!5, 1977, which gives the Secretary of the Interior the authority to recognize validly executed assignments made by Regional Corporations of their rights to receive payments from the Alaska Native Fund.

Implementation of this provision makes it possible for the regional corporations to give assignees a secured interest in the future distributions from the Fund. This, in turn, enables the regional corporations to borrow necessary capital for development projects at reduced interest rates.

The Secretary, under Section 31, may recognize regional corporation assignments only to the extent that they do not interfere with required redistributions of certain percentages of the fund receipts to the village corporations in the region and to certain stockholders.

The proposed rules require that a regional corporation provide evidence that the corporation's board of directors has authorized an assignment and that it specifically intended that the Secretary recognize that assignment.

Written comments on the proposed rules should be sent within thirty days after publication to the Bureau of Indian Affairs, Director of Financial Management, Department of the Interior, Washington, D.C. 20240.

Interior's Assistant Secretary for Indian Affairs Forrest J. Gerard said today he was disappointed by the United States Supreme Court ruling March 6 that Indian tribes do not have criminal jurisdiction over non Indians on reservations. He said that he thought the decision would inhibit the development of tribal self-government and the maintenance of criminal justice systems on the reservations.

Gerard also said that he did not believe that the decision applied to matters of civil jurisdiction. In a memorandum to Bureau of Indian Affairs field officers, Gerard wrote: “The Supreme Court did not consider or decide the issue of whether tribal courts may exercise civil jurisdiction over non-Indians. Your decision on approval of ordinances or resolutions asserting only civil jurisdiction over non-Indians should not be affected by this decision. “

The Supreme Court ruled in Oliphant v. Suquamish Indian Tribe that Indian tribal courts do not have inherent criminal jurisdiction to try and punish non-Indians. With the development of Indian self-determination as a national policy, a number of the tribes have asserted the need and the right to exercise criminal jurisdiction over non-Indians on the reservations. The Oliphant decision denies this right.

Gerard instructed BIA field officers that tribal ordinances or resolutions asserting tribal criminal jurisdiction over non-Indians must be disapproved. The memo also gave directions, in accordance with the ruling, for BIA law enforcement officers.

Gerard said that he would continue to work with the tribes, other Federal agencies and state and local governments to try to provide full protection against crime for all persons on the reservations.