This Week at Interior September 30, 2022

Transcript:

This Week at Interior 

Interior leaders visited public lands across America to celebrate National Public Lands Day and highlight President Biden’s America the Beautiful initiative, a locally-led effort to restore, connect and conserve 30% of America’s lands and waters over the next decade. Secretary Haaland and Bureau of Land Management Director Tracy Stone-Manning traveled to New Mexico to visit the Rio Grande del Norte National Monument. U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Director Martha Williams was in Baltimore at Masonville Cove. And National Park Service Director Chuck Sams traveled to Great Smoky Mountains National Park to honor those participating in the nation's largest annual single-day environmental volunteer effort. 

Secretary Haaland and Director Sams traveled to South Carolina this week to highlight Interior’s commitment to help tell a more complete story of America. They toured Summerton High School and Scott’s Branch High School, sites that will soon be part of the Brown v. Board of Education National Historical Park. They visited Benedict College to highlight investments to preserve Historically Black Colleges and Universities, and celebrated a new cooperative agreement between the National Park Service and the University of South Carolina’s Center for Civil Rights Research. 

Interior this week announced that the Bureau of Indian Affairs and Bureau of Indian Education will create Indigenous Food Hubs for BIE-operated schools and BIA-operated detention centers. The food hubs will help source Indigenous foods, enhance culturally based healthy nutrition education, and boost training for healthy and culturally appropriate food preparation. The announcement was made as part of the White House Conference on Hunger, Nutrition, and Health. 

The Interior Department’s first-ever Secretary’s Tribal Advisory Committee – or STAC -- held its kick-off meeting this week. The STAC will ensure Tribal leaders have direct and consistent contact and communication with current and future Interior officials. Secretary Haaland announced that President Whitney Gravelle of the Bay Mills Indian Community will serve as the new chair. Chairwoman Erica Pinto of the Jamul Indian Village will serve as vice chair.  

Assistant Secretary for Water and Science Tanya Trujillo was in Texas this week, celebrating a $20 million investment from President Biden’s Bipartisan Infrastructure Law to support the construction of an El Paso Water Advanced Water Purification facility. It's part of a more than $310 million investment in water recycling and drought resilience projects. 

The U.S. Geological Survey this week released a new report that details the strategic actions necessary to reduce the nation’s risk from landslide hazards. The new strategy will guide the way people study, coordinate responses to and prepare for landslide hazards across the country. 

The National Park Service this week released its annual report on the economic impact of the federal historic tax credit. That program provides a 20% federal tax credit to property owners who rehabilitate historic buildings while maintaining their historic character. NPS says the tax credit program produced an estimated 135,000 jobs last year and added $7.7 billion to the gross domestic product. 

Joseph Hautman of Plymouth, Minnesota, was announced this week as the winner of the 2022 Federal Duck Stamp Art Contest, with his painting of three tundra swans flying over a wetland. Hautman’s acrylic painting will be made into the 2023-2024 Federal Migratory Bird Hunting and Conservation Stamp, or “Duck Stamp,” which will go on sale in late June 2023. 

And our social media Picture of the Week, a stunning snapshot of the season at Cuyahoga Valley National Park in Ohio. Fall is one of the best times to visit, when the air is crisp and the autumn foliage reaches its peak color throughout October. 

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

That's This Week at Interior. 

This Week: Interior leaders visit public lands across America to celebrate National Public Lands Day and President Biden’s America the Beautiful initiative; Secretary Haaland travels to South Carolina to highlight Interior’s commitment to help tell a more complete story of America; Interior announces the creation of Indigenous Food Hubs for Bureau of Indian Education-operated schools and Bureau of Indian Affairs-operated detention centers; Interior’s first-ever Secretary’s Tribal Advisory Committee holds its kick-off meeting; a $20 million investment in an El Paso water facility from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law is celebrated; a new report details the strategic actions necessary to reduce the nation’s risk from landslide hazards; a tax credit for rehabilitating historic buildings yields more than 135,000 jobs and $7.7 billion for the economy; a winner emerges in the 2022 Duck Stamp contest; and the colors of autumn paint our social media Picture of the Week! 

  • Video
    04/11/2025

    This Week at Interior April 11, 2025

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    Transcript:

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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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