BUREAU OF INDIAN AFFAIRS (BIA)

An agency of the U.S. Department of the Interior which has the primary responsibility for exercising the federal government's trust relationship with Indian tribes. The BIA was first established in 1824 in the War Department, then transferred to the Department of the Interior in 1849. The BIA has prime responsibility to provide services to Indian tribes and plays a central role in the settlement process of Indian water rights disputes. The BIA exercises prime trust responsibility in providing federal government protection for Indian resources and federal assistance in resource development and management. Quite often this responsibility complicates the Department of the Interior's other broad responsibilities to manage the use of lands and natural resources on public lands through its Bureau of Land Management (BLM) land use programs, its Bureau of Reclamation (USBR) water-related projects, and its U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) wildlife and habitat restoration programs, which may frequently come in conflict with the Bureau of Indian Affairs Indian water rights issues. (For example, in Nevada v. United States (463 U.S. 129{1983}), the United States Supreme Court held that the United States (Department of the Interior) could adequately represent more than one interest simultaneously, and so it is not subject to the same standards as a private trustee. In this case, the Court found that claims made by the United States on behalf of the Pyramid Lake Paiute Indian Tribe to protect fisheries should have been asserted in prior litigation. Nevertheless, the Court found the failure to do so was not a breach of its trust obligations to the tribe, even though the United States also had protected the competing interests of non-Indian irrigators.) Also see Negotiated Settlement and Truckee River Operating Agreement (TROA).