This Week at Interior April 15, 2022

Transcript:

I'm Shannon Estenoz, Assistant Secretary for Fish and Wildlife and Parks, coming to you on the banks of the beautiful Cheat River in West Virginia. You're watching "This Week at Interior!" 

This Week, at Interior 

Secretary Haaland was on the road this week in Louisiana, visiting New Orleans to commemorate an historic expansion of Bayou Sauvage Urban National Wildlife Refuge, and highlight the Biden-Harris administration’s ongoing efforts to conserve, protect, and restore our nation’s lands and waters. The Secretary joined elected officials, community leaders, and Interior employees to celebrate the acquisition of the Little Pine Island tract, a 2,500-acre addition of tidal marshes and hardwood forests to the Refuge. The Secretary also visited Jazz National Historical Park, where she met with local National Park Service employees and was able to enjoy a live performance from the Park’s artist in residence. 

Secretary Haaland then traveled to Colorado, where she met with federal fire response leadership to discuss wildfire preparedness and response that will be bolstered by historic investments through the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law. The visit also helped launch the Biden-Harris administration’s Building a Better America rural infrastructure tour, which will highlight how infrastructure investments will make a transformative and lasting impact in communities across rural America. And the Secretary explored Rocky Mountain National Park, where she heard about the park’s ongoing infrastructure investments to improve the visitor experience and protect the landscape. 

The Biden-Harris administration this week launched the $1 billion America the Beautiful Challenge. It aims to leverage federal conservation and restoration investments with private and philanthropic contributions to accelerate land, water, and wildlife conservation efforts across the country. Interior joins the Departments of Agriculture and Defense to support the challenge, with a $375 million investment in Ecosystem Restoration funds to protect and restore core habitats. 

Interior this week announced 40 fish passage projects in 23 states and Puerto Rico will receive a total of nearly $38 million in fiscal year 2022 funding from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law. Assistant Secretary for Fish and Wildlife and Parks Shannon Estenoz, and U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service Director Martha Williams, visited the Albright Power Station Dam in West Virgina, one of the recipients of the new funding. The National Fish Passage Program supports aquatic ecosystem restoration projects and restores free-flowing waters, allowing for enhanced fish migration and protecting communities from flooding.  

Interior this week announced it will invest $46 million in Tribal communities to address the unique impacts of climate change. The funding comes from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and fiscal year 2022 appropriations. It's available for projects and initiatives that address and strengthen Tribal climate resilience and adaptation, ocean and coastal management, community-driven relocation and protect-in-place activities, and internships and youth engagement. 

The National Park Service this week awarded $1 million in Underrepresented Community Grants to 22 projects in 16 states, the District of Columbia, and Guam. These funds will support the identification, planning and development of nominations to the National Register of Historic Places to increase representation of Black, Indigenous, and communities of color. 

The Fish and Wildlife Service this week announced its first-ever Zoonotic Disease Initiative, a grant program focused on wildlife disease prevention and preparedness. Authorized under the American Rescue Plan, the Initiative will provide $9 million to states, Tribes and territories to strengthen early detection, rapid response and science-based management research to address wildlife disease outbreaks before they cross the barrier from animals to humans and become pandemics. 

National Park Week kicks off April 16th with a fee free day at any national park. The annual celebration is a time to explore amazing places, and discover stories of history and culture. National Park Week runs through April 24th. Find your park at nps.gov. 

And our social media Picture of the Week, this sea otter mom and her newborn pup at Alaska's Glacier Bay National Park and Preserve. A baby sea otter needs constant attention and will stay with its mother for six months until it develops the necessary survival skills. It won't even be able to dive until it loses all its floof, so mom will leave it floating while she forages for food. 

Make sure you follow us on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and You Tube. 

That's This Week, at Interior. 

This Week: Secretary Haaland visits New Orleans to commemorate the historic expansion of Bayou Sauvage Urban National Wildlife Refuge; in Colorado the Secretary highlights how the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law will beef up the federal response to wildfires; the Biden-Harris administration launches the America the Beautiful Challenge to accelerate locally led conservation efforts across the country; there's new funding for National Fish Passage Program projects; Interior is investing nearly $50 million for climate resilience in Indigenous communities; new grants from the National Park Service will help underrepresented communities tell their stories; the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is putting a new focus on diseases that jump from animals to humans; National Park Week kicks off this weekend with a fee free day tomorrow; and we head to Alaska for 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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