UTAH

Tribal leaders and feds reestablish Bears Ears Commission

SALT LAKE CITY >> Federal officials and tribal nations have formally reestablished a commission to oversee land management decisions at a national monument in Utah — among the first such joint governance agreements signed by Native Americans and U.S. officials.

Leaders from agencies including the Bureau of Land Management and U.S. Forest Service met with representatives from five tribal nations Saturday to sign a document formalizing the Bears Ears Commission, a governing body tasked with day-to-day decisions on the 2,125-square-mile Bears Ears National Monument.

In 2021, President Joe Biden restored two sprawling national monuments in southern Utah — Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante — reversing a decision by President Donald Trump that opened for mining and other development hundreds of thousands of acres of rugged lands sacred to Native Americans and home to ancient cliff dwellings and petroglyphs.

Together, the monuments encompass an area nearly the size of Connecticut, and were created by Democratic administrations under a century-old law that allows presidents to protect sites considered historic, geographically or culturally important.

Tribes have long sought a larger role in their oversight.

The Bears Ears Commission and Obama-era joint governance plan was altered to the chagrin of tribal officials when Trump downsized the monument in 2017. The five nations, all of which were driven off land included in the monument, are the Hopi, the Navajo Nation, the Pueblo of Zuni, the Ute Mountain Ute Tribe and the Ute Indian Tribe of the Uintah and Ouray Reservation.

washington

Biden to name first Native American U.S. treasurer

WASHINGTON >> A Native American is being appointed U.S. treasurer, a historic first.

The White House on Tuesday announced President Joe Biden's intent to appoint Marilynn “Lynn” Malerba as his administration establishes an Office of Tribal and Native Affairs at the Treasury Department, which will be overseen by the U.S. treasurer.

The treasurer’s duties include oversight of the U.S. Mint, serving as a liaison with the Federal Reserve and overseeing Treasury’s Office of Consumer Policy. The treasurer's signature appears on U.S. currency.

Malerba, who is the lifetime chief of the Mohegan Indian Tribe, previously worked as a registered nurse, according to the tribe's website, and has served in various tribal government roles. The tribe's reservation is located on the Thames River in Uncasville, Connecticut.

“For the first time in history, a Tribal leader and Native woman’s name will be the signature on our currency,” Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said in remarks prepared ahead of the announcement.

Yellen was set to visit the Rosebud Indian Reservation in South Dakota on Tuesday, the first time a Treasury secretary has visited a tribal nation.

– The Associated Press