This Week at Interior October 18, 2024

Transcript:

Hello, I’m BLM Colorado State Director Doug Vilsack, here at Canyons of the Ancients National Monument, and you’re watching This Week at Interior!

This Week at Interior  

Secretary Haaland was in New Mexico and Colorado this week to highlight how President Biden’s Investing in America agenda is restoring public lands and waters, strengthening Indian Country and the use of Indigenous Knowledge, and building a next-generation conservation workforce through the Indian Youth Service Corps–part of the President’s new American Climate Corps. In New Mexico's Acoma Pueblo, she highlighted a $480,000 grant to advance the Ancestral Lands Conservation Corps – or ALCC’s - food sovereignty and historic preservation projects in collaboration with its partners. Later, the Secretary traveled to Canyons of the Ancients National Monument in Colorado to meet with their ALCC trail crew. The Monument, managed by the Bureau of Land Management, contains the highest known cultural site density in the country. And at Mesa Verde National Park in Colorado, she joined another ALCC team to learn how the park has been connecting Indian Youth Service Corps members with their ancestral lands through work in different aspects of preservation and interpretation.

Interior, the California Natural Resource Agency and other stakeholders this week broke ground on the latest phase of the Salton Sea Species Conservation Habitat Project, funded in part through the President’s Investing in America agenda. The Bureau of Reclamation is investing $250 million through the Inflation Reduction Act over 5 years to fast-track implementation of the state’s 10-year plan for dust suppression and aquatic restoration, while enabling urgent water conservation.

Interior this week announced significant strides in expanding geothermal energy on public lands, an abundant clean energy resource with tremendous potential to help the country meet the Biden-Harris administration’s goal of a carbon pollution-free power sector by 2035. Among the progressed announced, the Bureau of Land Management approved the Fervo Cape Geothermal Power Project in Beaver County, Utah, which will use innovative technology to generate up to 2 gigawatts, enough to power 2 million homes.  

Interior this week signed three landmark agreements with Alaska Native Tribes and Corporations to advance co-stewardship and safeguard salmon within the Yukon, Kuskokwim, and Norton Sound regions through the Department’s Gravel to Gravel Keystone Initiative. The move also improves management of easements that provide access to public lands and waters across privately owned Ahtna lands.  

Interior and the Department of Agriculture this week announced a final rule to strengthen Alaska Tribal representation on the Federal Subsistence Board or FSB, which manages subsistence use on federal lands and waters in Alaska. The final changes to the FSB reflect the meaningful role of Tribal consultation and the Biden-Harris administration’s commitment to engaging directly with Tribal leaders when making decisions that impact their communities.  

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service this week awarded more than $6.4 million to federally recognized Tribes to benefit fish and wildlife resources and their habitats. This year’s funding will support 35 Tribes for conservation projects across 15 states, benefiting a wide range of wildlife and habitat, including species of cultural or traditional importance to Indigenous communities.  

It’s National Wildlife Refuge Week -- a time for Americans coast-to-coast to get outdoors and enjoy the nation’s largest network of public lands dedicated to wildlife conservation and managed by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Since 1903, national wildlife refuges have offered access to a host of popular activities while providing vital habitat for thousands of wildlife species.

And our social media Picture of the Week, this big hairy fellow at Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. It's a muskox, or "oomingmak" in the Iñupiat language, which means "the bearded one." It's a name that honors their long, flowing fur, perfect for offering protection against the relentless Arctic cold.

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That's This Week at Interior! 
 

This Week: Secretary Haaland visits New Mexico and Colorado to highlight how President Biden’s Investing in America agenda is restoring public lands and waters and strengthening Indian Country; Interior, the California Natural Resource Agency and other stakeholders break ground on the latest phase of the Salton Sea Species Conservation Habitat Project; Interior announces significant strides in expanding geothermal energy on public lands; Interior signs three landmark agreements with Alaska Native Tribes and Corporations to advance co-stewardship and safeguard salmon within the Yukon, Kuskokwim, and Norton Sound regions; Interior and the Department of Agriculture announce a final rule to strengthen Alaska Tribal representation on the Federal Subsistence Board; the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service awards more than $6.4 million to federally recognized Tribes to benefit fish and wildlife resources and their habitats; we celebrate the great outdoors during National Wildlife Refuge Week; and it's big, it's hairy, and it's our social media Picture of the Week!

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    04/11/2025

    This Week at Interior April 11, 2025

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    This Week at Interior

    President Trump this week signed Executive Orders aimed at achieving the Administration's goal of American Energy Dominance with a renewed focus on coal. One of the orders directs Interior to identify untapped coal resources on federal lands, while removing barriers to mining and leasing.

    The value of untapped coal in our country is one hundred times greater than the value of all the gold at Fort Knox, and we're going to unleash it and make America rich and powerful again.

    To advance the President Trump's order, Interior will implement a series of policy moves and regulatory reforms to position coal as a cornerstone of the nation’s energy strategy by ensuring federally managed lands remain open and accessible for responsible energy development. Secretary Burgum likened the actions to creating a new Golden Age of "Mine, Baby, Mine," saying that  

    Interior is unlocking America’s full potential in energy dominance and economic development to make life more affordable for every American family while showing the world the power of America’s natural resources and innovation.  

    Among the actions are ending the moratorium on federal coal leasing, reopening federal lands in Montana and Wyoming to coal leasing, removing regulatory burdens for coal mines, and providing royalty rate relief.  

    Interior this week announced the disbursement of more than $13 million in grants to support the reclamation of abandoned mine lands, furthering the Trump administration’s commitment to American Energy Dominance, environmental stewardship and economic renewal in coal communities. The funding is administered through the Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement, and it will support job creation and economic revitalization efforts in North Dakota, Tennessee and Texas.  

    Interior this week announced the release of updated oil and gas reserve estimates for the Gulf of America's Outer Continental Shelf. The new data and analysis over the last couple of years reveal an additional 1.3 billion barrels of oil equivalent since 2021, bringing the total reserve estimate to 7.04 billion barrels of oil equivalent. That figure includes 5.77 billion barrels of oil and 7.15 trillion cubic feet of natural gas. Earlier this year, the Trump administration announced plans to significantly increase oil and gas leasing on the Outer Continental Shelf, and just last week Secretary Burgum directed the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management to hold the first Gulf of America oil and gas lease sale since its renaming in February.

    Secretary Burgum held his first All Hands meeting this week at Interior's historic Yates Auditorium. The Secretary saluted the notable accomplishments the Department has achieved in making the transition from the previous administration, and expanded on his vision that innovation, rather than regulation, is the cornerstone of American prosperity.

    The thing that has led our country for 250 years is innovation, doesn't matter whether it's the Agricultural Revolution, the Industrial Revolution our ability to innovate in a way that allowed us to win World War One and World War II and lead the world and become the world leader, all of it was innovation based, and we have to get back to those roots. That's how we win. That's how America wins in this world, that's how we win again for our children and our children's children, is we win with innovation.

    U.S. Geological Survey crews were deployed late last week and this week to monitor flood impacts after storms dumped heavy rain across portions of the southeast and Midwest. Crews are still hard at work gathering flood measurements in Indiana, Kentucky, Illinois and Ohio, as well as West Virginia, Arkansas, Tennessee and Mississippi, where as much as ten inches of rain fell causing massive flooding. The gages provide information for the National Weather Service to predict when dangerous flooding might occur and allow for warnings to vulnerable residents, as flood crests will continue into early May.

    And our social media Picture of the Week, California's Battery Point Lighthouse. Perched on California's rugged northern coast, this historic beacon stands among the rocky outcrops of the California Coastal National Monument and has guided mariners since its first lighting in 1856.

    Make sure you follow us on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube and X! That's This Week at Interior!


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    News and headlines from Interior April 11, 2025

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