A Year of Progress: Interior’s Bold Actions

The worsening impacts of climate change pose an imminent threat to our daily lives, important wildlife habitats, and well-being of future generations. As we’ve seen over the past year, urban, rural, and Tribal communities continue to face challenges from superstorms, wildfires, droughts, and floods. Meanwhile, communities of color, low-income families, and Indigenous communities bear a disproportionate brunt of the harm from air and water pollution, aging infrastructure, and extreme weather events. 

Recognizing that there’s no time to waste in addressing the climate and nature crises, the Department of the Interior has taken bold action this year to steward the nation’s public lands, strengthen important environmental protections, pursue environmental justice, and honor our relationships with Tribal Nations. 

We are also empowering American workers and businesses to lead a clean energy revolution that achieves a carbon pollution-free power sector by 2035 and puts the United States on a path to a net-zero economy by 2050.

Over the past year, Interior has:

• Taken steps to accelerate responsible development of renewable energy on public lands and waters; 
• Launched the Federal Boarding School Initiative to address the inter-generational impact of Indian boarding schools;
• Deployed resources to address the drought crisis and protect our water supplies for people and the natural environment;
• Pursued justice for missing and murdered American Indians and Alaska Natives and worked to keep Tribal communities safe;
• Better prepared communities and ecosystems against the threat of wildland fire by promoting climate resiliency and supporting federal firefighters;
• Launched the America the Beautiful initiative to conserve and restore 30% of lands and waters by 2030; and
• Strengthened the nation's infrastructure in our national parks and public lands through the Great American Outdoors Act.

In 2022, the Interior Department will continue to implement the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, a once-in-a-generation investment that will help communities tackle the climate crisis while creating good-paying union jobs, advancing environmental justice, and boosting local economies. The funding will boost the agency’s efforts to address intensifying drought, wildfires, flooding, and legacy pollution, and the law will serve as the largest investment in the resilience of physical and natural systems in American history.

At every step of the way, the Department will undertake these goals with broad engagement, including with Tribal nations, states, territories, local officials, agricultural, forest and private landowners, environmental justice advocates, and others to identify strategies and goals that reflect the priorities of all communities.

We are proud to be part of the Biden-Harris administration’s all-of-government approach to tackling the climate crisis and will continue to lead in our ongoing efforts to invest in our nation’s communities.