Northern Arapaho Tribe

Tribal members, law enforcement and state employees talked trainings and a death investigation review with lawmakers.

Tribes around the country receive federal support through the annual Indian Housing Block Grant program, but Trump’s proposed budget would decrease the program’s funding by about 20% next year.

A commitment structure would create a four-year renewable scholarship that would work with other awards to equal tuition and mandatory fees. But figuring out how to cover the costs is still a work in progress.

The new liaison positions will serve as the face of communication when it comes to working with local, state and federal partners and agencies on the issue.

The Wyoming Legislature is considering two bills about sales taxes on the Wind River Reservation. One would return improperly collected online sales taxes to the Eastern Shoshone and Northern Arapaho Tribes, and the other codifies that the state does not collect sales tax from non-tribal members on reservation land.

People who vandalize petroglyphs, pictographs and historical inscriptions would be fined under a bill recently passed by the state Senate. The measure also sets aside funding to survey, document and model all known pictographs and petroglyphs on state land in Wyoming.

An oil company claims it’s not responsible for plugging oil wells on the Wind River Reservation and is taking that claim to federal court.

A University of Wisconsin researcher came across the fossils, still preserved in their burrows, on BLM land near Dubois. He returned there over the years, eventually partnering with the Eastern Shoshone Tribe to bring local middle school students and elders to the site.

Democrats in the U.S. Senate said they had issues with the Wyoming federal delegation’s supposed lack of consultation with the Eastern Shoshone and Northern Arapaho tribes about the conveyance. Barrasso said he spoke with both tribes as early as February, but the Wind River Inter-Tribal Council released a resolution this month insisting neither tribe was consulted.

Members of the Northern Arapaho Business Council, Northern Arapaho Tribal Committee and Northern Arapaho Economic Development Commission took their oaths of office at a ceremony in Arapahoe last Friday.