The NewsRoom
Release: #4056
Date: December 10, 2009

MMS Managers Meet with Tribal Representatives

New State and Indian Coordination Group Established

DENVER – Senior management from the Minerals Management Service’s (MMS) Minerals Revenue Management (MRM) Program recently completed a visit with American Indian Tribal representatives in Colorado and Arizona to provide updates on several changes occurring within the MRM Program.

Among those is the establishment of a new State and Indian Coordination group designed to provide one-stop services for Tribal and state officials for matters related to energy revenues. 

The recent visit by MRM management represents just one element of an outreach program that MMS has maintained for several years. “These meetings provide us with an opportunity to gauge how our services are benefitting American Indian Tribes and individual American Indian mineral owners,” said MMS Associate Director Greg Gould. “We are constantly looking for feedback and these meetings give us an excellent opportunity to see if there are possible areas for us to improve.” 

Subprograms of the new office include State and Tribal Support, State and Indian Outreach, the Federal Indian Minerals Office located in Farmington, NM, and the virtual office in Fort Berthold, ND.  The State and Indian Coordination group will be able to better manage contract issues and compliance activities of Tribes, while maintaining an effective outreach program to help individual Indian mineral owners resolve any issues they might face.

Associate Director Gould and other MRM managers met with representatives of the Navajo Nation, the Southern Ute Tribe, and the Ute Mountain Ute Tribe to discuss energy revenue management on Tribal lands, and to update Tribal representatives on other recent changes, including the reorganization.

Discussion topics also included continued audit coordination between the MMS and select American Indian Tribes to support audits and compliance checks on energy production that occurs within Tribal boundaries.

As part of its ongoing outreach program, MMS conducted 75 outreach sessions in Fiscal Year 2009 to answer questions and provide assistance to individual American Indian mineral owners.  In addition, MMS responded to and closed out 5,474 inquiries received during the year at its offices in Denver and regional offices in Oklahoma and New Mexico.

Accompanying the Associate Director on the visits were Donald Sant, Program Director of the MRM Financial and Program Management organization; Paul Tyler, Program Manager of the new State and Indian Coordination group; and John Barder, a supervisor responsible for audit and compliance work for properties in the San Juan Basin.  The group traveled to Window Rock, AZ, as well as Ignacio and Towac, CO, to meet with the Tribal representatives, including Tribal auditors and principal investigators.

 News Media Contact:

MMSPublicAffairsMRM@mms.gov

MMS: Securing Ocean Energy & Economic Value for America
U.S. Department of the Interior

Last Updated: 09/17/2010, 05:10 PM Central Time