This Week at Interior December 13, 2024

Transcript:

Hi, I'm Jennifer Greener, Refuge Manager here at the 573rd National Wildlife Refuge, the Southern Maryland Woodlands National Wildlife Refuge, and you're watching This Week at Interior!

This Week at Interior

(Drumming and singing)

The Department of the Interior hosted the final White House Tribal Nations Summit of the Biden-Harris Administration this week. Secretary Haaland, the first Native American member of a Presidential Cabinet, and Assistant Secretary for Indian Affairs Bryan Newland honored President Biden with a blanket ceremony for his historic efforts to advance progress for all Native Americans.

It says Joe Biden, Champion for Indian County, 2021 to 2024.

To all the Tribal Nations I say thank you and I mean it sincerely. Thank you for your partnership. Thank you for your trust in me. But most of all thank you for your friendship, and always believing as I do, that the possibilities of our nation are limitless.

This is a President and an Administration that truly sees Indigenous people and has worked tirelessly to address the issues in Indian County that have long been underfunded or outright ignored.

The highlight of this year's summit was the establishment of the Carlisle Indian Boarding School National Monument in Carlisle, Pennsylvania as the 432nd site in the National Park system. The move acknowledges the painful past of the forced assimilation of Native children through the implementation of federal Indian boarding school policies that ripped Indigenous children away from their homes and families in an attempt to eradicate their culture. This work has been one of the top priorities of the Department through Secretary Haaland’s Federal Indian Boarding School Initiative.

As part of that initiative, Secretary Haaland announced new agreements with the Library of Congress and the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History. The new agreements will preserve survivor stories gathered through the Department’s oral history project, and inform the public on histories relating to the boarding school system and its impacts on Indigenous children and their communities.

The Departments of the Interior and Justice published new best practices to improve media coverage on the crisis of missing and murdered Indigenous peoples and human trafficking. American Indian and Alaska Native people are at a disproportionate risk of experiencing violence, murder, or going missing and make up a significant portion of missing and murdered cases. The guidelines come in response to a key recommendation from the Not Invisible Act Commission.

The Administration also announced the release of a 10-year National Plan on Native Language Revitalization, which outlines a comprehensive, government-wide strategy to support the revitalization, protection, preservation and reclamation of Native languages. The plan is a joint effort from the Departments of the Interior, Education and Health and Human Services — it charts a path to help address the U.S. government’s role in the loss of Native languages across the continental United States, Alaska and Hawaiʻi.

In her remarks at the White House Tribal Nations Summit, the Secretary announced that 400 co-stewardship agreements have been signed by the Biden-Harris administration with Tribes, Alaska Native Corporations and consortiums. These agreements improve federal stewardship of public lands, waters and wildlife by strengthening the role of Tribal governments in federal land management.

Secretary Haaland and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Director Martha Williams traveled to Southern Maryland this week where they joined local partners to celebrate the establishment of Southern Maryland Woodlands National Wildlife Refuge as the 573rd and newest unit of the National Wildlife Refuge System. This marks the sixth addition to the Refuge System by Secretary Haaland.  

Bureau of Indian Education Director Tony Dearman joined a celebration this week to break ground on a campus modernization project at Many Farms High School on the Navajo Nation in Arizona, funded by the Great American Outdoors Act. The project will provide more than $200 million to modernize and improve educational facilities for students in grades 9 through 12.

U.S. Geological Survey scientists made over 800 presentations this week at the American Geophysical Union, a major gathering of Earth and environmental scientists. Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for Water and Science Annalise Blum discussed the connection between geoscience and national security, and water security. USGS Director David Applegate led townhalls on working for USGS and on national security.

And our social media Picture of the Week, we're marking International Mountain Day this week with this majestic image of Rocky Mountain National Park in Colorado. Regal and timeless, mountains have a way of captivating our imagination, inspiring us to explore, learn, connect with nature and seek a peaceful refuge.

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

That's This Week at Interior!

 

This Week: Interior hosts the final White House Tribal Nations Summit of the Biden-Harris administration; President Biden establishes the Carlisle Indian Boarding School National Monument as the 432nd addition to the National Park System; Secretary Haaland announces new agreements with the Library of Congress and the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History to preserve federal Indian boarding school survivor stories; the Departments of the Interior and Justice publish best practices to improve media coverage on the crises of missing and murdered Indigenous peoples and human trafficking; the Administration releases a 10-year National Plan on Native Language Revitalization; Secretary Haaland announces that 400 co-stewardship agreements have been signed by the Biden-Harris administration with Tribes, Alaska Native Corporations and consortiums; Secretary Haaland and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Director Martha Williams celebrate the establishment of Southern Maryland Woodlands National Wildlife Refuge as the 573rd and newest unit of the National Wildlife Refuge System; Bureau of Indian Education Director Tony Dearman joins a celebration to break ground on a campus modernization project at Many Farms High School on the Navajo Nation in Arizona; U.S. Geological Survey scientists make over 800 presentations at a major gathering of Earth and environmental scientists; and we’re marking International Mountain Day with our social media Picture of the Week!

  • Video
    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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