This Week at Interior December 6, 2024

Transcript:

This Week at Interior  

Interior joined other federal agencies and the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation and partners this week to announce $122.4 million in 61 grants through the America the Beautiful Challenge. The grants will support landscape-scale conservation projects across 42 states, 19 Tribal Nations, and 3 U.S. territories. President Biden launched America the Beautiful in 2021, and set the nation’s first-ever goal to conserve at least 30 percent of U.S. lands and waters by 2030.  

Interior and the Bureau of Reclamation this week announced $849 million to revitalize aging water delivery systems across the West. The new slate of grants from President Biden’s Investing in America agenda will fund efforts to restore canal capacity, sustain water treatment for Tribes, replace equipment for hydropower production and provide necessary maintenance to aging project buildings.

The Bureau of Reclamation this week celebrated nearly $1 billion in water conservation agreements with its state and Tribal partners during the Colorado River Water Users Association conference in Las Vegas, Nevada. The Inflation Reduction Act includes $4 billion for water conservation and ecosystem projects in the Colorado River Basin and other basins experiencing similar levels of long-term drought.

Interior this week made more than $20 million available through the President’s Investing in America Agenda to strengthen local governments’ wildfire response by converting vehicles to wildland fire engines. This pilot program, launched in February, is helping small, remote emergency response agencies quickly expand their wildfire response capacity as they face the devastating impacts of climate change, drought and intensifying wildfires.  

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and its partners this week announced that the recent release of five endangered Hawaiian crows, or ʻalalā, in Maui appears to be a success. The release was part of a pilot program last month by state conservationists. No wild pairs of ʻalalā have been spotted in Hawai'i for more than two decades.

3 -2 -1...ohhhhh! (Music)

'Tis the season once again at President's Park on the Ellipse in Washington D.C., where President Biden lit the National Christmas Tree. Secretary Haaland and National Park Service Director Chuck Sams were also on hand to deliver remarks to an audience bundled against the chilly weather. The tree lighting ceremony goes back 102 years to President Calvin Coolidge. If you weren't one of the lucky few to watch it live in person, fear not: the tree will stand illuminated in front of the White House throughout the holiday season, and the ceremony will be broadcast nationwide on December 20th.

And our social media Picture of the Week, this majestic great gray owl, courtesy of the Fish and Wildlife Service. The world's largest species of owl by length, the great gray becomes one with its forest haunts, which range from Alaska through Canada and the northern border states...and with its exceptional hearing, can even locate its prey hiding beneath the winter snows.

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That's This Week at Interior! 

This Week: Interior joins other federal agencies and partners to announce over $120 million in conservation grants through the America the Beautiful Challenge; Interior announces $849 million to revitalize aging water delivery systems across the West; the Bureau of Reclamation celebrates nearly $1 billion in water conservation agreements with its state and Tribal partners at the Colorado River Water Users Association conference in Las Vegas; more than $20 million is on the way to strengthen local governments’ wildfire response by converting vehicles to wildland fire engines; the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service applauds the successful release of five endangered Hawaiian crows, or ʻalalā, in Maui; t'is the season once again on the Ellipse in Washington D.C., where President Biden lights the National Christmas Tree; and check out one superb owl in our social media Picture of the Week!