Big Horn County News: National leaders honored in Crow Agency
The sweltering heat of Montana’s July only added to the high energy centered around the Multipurpose Building in Crow Agency on Friday as four United States leaders traveled through Crow Country. Around noon, they stopped to say a few words after holding a hearing in Billings on the consultation process of the Cobell litigation.
Ken Salazar, the United States Secretary of the Interior, Jon Tester, a U.S. Senator from Montana, Michael Connor, the Commissioner of the Bureau of Reclamation and Donald “Del” Laverdure, Deputy Assistant Secretary-Indian Affairs for the U.S. Department of the Interior were joined on stage by a number of other high-ranking officials including John Wessels, the Inter-mountain Regional Director National Park Service and Ed Parisian, Regional Director of the BIA’s Rocky Mountain Regional Office.
Missing from the event were the Chairman of the Crow Tribe, Cedric Black Eagle and Vice Secretary Darrin Old Coyote — they were busy attending a sundance festival. Also absent was the entire Legislative Branch consisting of 18 Senators and a three-person legal team. Several Senators insisted they had no previous notification of the event. The Legal Counsel of the Executive Branch refutes the claim.
