Obama taps American Indian to head Indian Affairs

An American Indian who served as the attorney general of Idaho was nominated to become the head of the US Bureau of Indian Affairs.

An American Indian who served as the attorney general of Idaho was nominated to become the head of the US Bureau of Indian Affairs.

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President Barack Obama yesterday nominated for the post Larry EchoHawk, a law professor at Brigham Young University and a member of the Pawnee tribe. As well as being the former attorney general, EchoHawk ran for Idaho governor in 1994, losing to Republican Phil Batt by fewer than 35,000 votes. At the time, he would have been the nation's first American Indian governor.

He became the first American Indian elected to a constitutional statewide office when he became attorney general in the early 1990s, the White House said.

The embattled Indian Affairs agency has been without a leader for some time. The most recent head, Carl Artman, took the post in March 2007 after it had been vacant for two years, then resigned a little more than a year later.

The agency, which manages 66 million acres and oversees Indian schools and other programmes, has been embroiled in a lawsuit for 12 years over Indian trust land. The long-running suit claims the Indians were swindled out of billions of dollars in oil, gas, grazing, timber and other royalties overseen by the Interior Department since 1887.