This Week at Interior November 22, 2024

Transcript:

This Week at Interior  

Secretary Haaland and Assistant Secretary for Insular and International Affairs Carmen Cantor visited Colombia this week, to highlight the importance of international cooperation to conserve biodiversity, safeguard wildlife, and honor Indigenous communities. Throughout their visit, they met with officials and partners to discuss native species conservation and international collaboration to combat illegal wildlife trafficking – the poaching, smuggling and illegal trade of protected species.  
Secretary Haaland met separately with Colombian Indigenous leaders and Afro-Colombian Indigenous youth to talk about shared priorities for climate resilience, access to nature, and equity and economic opportunity for Indigenous communities in the region.

The delegation also traveled to Colombia’s Amazon region to highlight the United States’ work to advance biodiversity conservation in collaboration with local communities, entrepreneurs and territorial authorities, to create sustainable livelihoods. The visit follows President Biden’s trip to Brazil earlier in the week -- the first visit to the Amazon rainforest by a sitting American President.    

Acting Deputy Secretary Laura Daniel-Davis represented the Interior Department at COP29 this week in Baku, Azerbaijan -- that’s the 29th Conference of the Parties of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. Throughout the trip, she met with international leaders and stakeholders to highlight Interior’s commitment to tackling the climate crisis with collaborative, science-based solutions. She also participated in several U.S. hosted events on the inclusion of Indigenous Knowledge in policy making, the value of Tribal co-stewardship, the importance of using nature-based solutions to address climate impacts, and strengthening Indian Country through the President’s Investing in America agenda.  

During the visit, the Acting Deputy Secretary announced the launch of an enhanced digital Nature-Based Solutions Roadmap in partnership with Duke University. This resource will serve as a user-friendly, accessible publicly available guide for practitioners and site users to learn about opportunities to incorporate nature-based solutions in their work, including over 400 case studies of nature-based solutions projects taking place in the United States and internationally.

Interior and the Bureau of Reclamation released next steps in the effort to develop Post-2026 Operations for the Colorado River. Five alternatives will be analyzed that represent a wide range of proposals submitted by Basin states, Tribes, cooperating agencies and non-governmental organizations, and reflect ongoing conversations with all basin stakeholders. Since Day One of the Biden-Harris administration, Interior has led critical discussions over how to bring the Colorado River back from the brink of crisis in the face of a 24-year drought.

Interior and the Bureau of Reclamation this week also announced a $125 million investment in five projects in California and Utah through President Biden’s Investing in America agenda to help create new sources of water and improve drought resiliency. The Large-Scale Water Recycling program, launched with funding from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, allows western communities to build and expand infrastructure to recycle vast amounts of water to meet growing needs. Reclamation is investing a total of $8.3 billion from the Law over five years for water infrastructure projects, including rural water, water storage, conservation and conveyance, nature-based solutions, dam safety, water purification and reuse, and desalination. Since the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law was signed in November 2021, Reclamation has announced more than $3.5 billion for more than 530 projects.     
The Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement this week announced more than $4.9 million for Kansas to address dangerous and polluting abandoned mine lands, create good-paying, family-sustaining jobs and catalyze economic opportunity in coal communities. The Bipartisan Infrastructure Law provides $11.3 billion in AML funding over 15 years.

The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management is inviting the public to comment on an environmental analysis of five wind lease areas off of California’s central and north coasts, which includes the first U.S. lease areas identified for future floating offshore wind development. The projects have the potential to produce over 4.6 GW of offshore wind energy, enough to power over 1.5 million homes.

This week marked World Fisheries Day, recognizing the important role that fisheries play in feeding people, while helping make for healthier oceans. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service raised and stocked 126 million fish this year, removing more than 100 barriers to help fish migrate freely. It also invested $4.9 million through the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law for the early detection and eradication of invasive species and helped ensure a safe and healthy national aquaculture industry.

And our social media Picture of the Week, a snapshot of the past at Mesa Verde National Park in Colorado. For more than 700 years, the Ancestral Pueblo people built thriving communities on the mesas and in the cliffs here, before abandoning the site some 700 years ago. Today, the park protects the rich cultural heritage of 27 Pueblos and Tribes, offering visitors a spectacular window into a long-lost world.

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That's This Week at Interior! 
 

This Week: Secretary Haaland visits Colombia to highlight the importance of international cooperation to conserve biodiversity, safeguard wildlife, and honor Indigenous communities; Acting Deputy Secretary Laura Daniel-Davis represents Interior at COP29 in Baku, Azerbaijan; Interior releases the next steps in the effort to develop Post-2026 Operations for the Colorado River Basin; a $125 million investment is announced for five projects to help create new sources of water and improve drought resiliency in the west; more than $4.9 million will address dangerous and polluting abandoned mine lands in Kansas; the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management advances the prospect of floating wind power offshore California’s central and north coasts; this week marks World Fisheries Day, recognizing the important role that fisheries play in feeding people, while helping make for healthier oceans; and it's a snapshot of the long-lost past in 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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