This Week at Interior February 23, 2024

Hi, I’m Scott Teodorski, Superintendent at Maggie L. Walker National Historic Site, and you’re watching This Week at Interior!

This Week at Interior

Monday, February 19th, marked the official Day of Remembrance of Japanese American Incarceration During World War II, commemorating the unjust, forced relocation and confinement of more than 125,000 Japanese Americans between 1942 and 1945. Secretary Haaland this week formally designated the Amache National Historic Site in Colorado -- it was one of 10 incarceration sites established by the War Relocation Authority to detain Japanese Americans forcibly removed from the West Coast of the United States.  

Secretary Haaland traveled to Virginia this week to commemorate Black History Month and reinforce Interior's commitment to honoring the legacy and achievements of African Americans. She toured Hampton University and learned about their progress to implement a $750,000 grant from the National Park Service’s Historic Preservation Fund’s Historically Black Colleges and Universities program. She also visited two sites stewarded by NPS: the Maggie L. Walker National Historic Site and Fort Monroe National Monument. Maggie Lena Walker devoted her life to civil rights advancement, economic empowerment, and educational opportunities for Jim Crow-era African Americans and women. Fort Monroe National Monument, the site of the first arrival of enslaved Africans in English North America in 1619, was also a safe haven for freedom seekers during the American Civil War.  

While in Virginia, Secretary Haaland hosted a listening session with leaders from the Chickahominy Indian Tribe, Chickahominy Indian Tribe – Eastern Division, Monacan Indian Nation, Nansemond Indian Nation, Pamunkey Indian Tribe, Rappahannock Tribe, and Upper Mattaponi Tribe. President Biden’s Investing in America agenda has made historic investments in Indigenous communities in Virginia and across the country. The Bipartisan Infrastructure Law is investing more than $13 billion directly into Tribal communities, including critical funding to repair roads, bridges and rails, expand access to clean drinking water, and advance environmental justice.  

Secretary Haaland also traveled to Ohio this week, where she announced more than $46 million from the Investing in America agenda through the Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement to address dangerous and polluting abandoned mines, create good-paying jobs and catalyze economic opportunity. She hosted a roundtable with local labor leaders and community members to discuss the Department's implementation of funding provided through the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, which allocates a total of $16 billion to address legacy pollution, including $11.3 billion in abandoned mine land funding over 15 years.

Interior this week announced a $50.5 million investment through President Biden’s Investing in America agenda to put people to work plugging, remediating and reclaiming orphaned oil and gas wells located in national parks, national forests, national wildlife refuges, and on other public lands and waters. Five bureaus within the Departments of the Interior and Agriculture will address 123 high-priority polluting wells that pose threats to human health and safety, the climate and wildlife.  

Assistant Secretary for Indian Affairs Bryan Newland traveled to Arizona this week following the announcement of a $10 million investment from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law to upgrade and modernize Bureau of Indian Affairs-owned irrigation projects and power utilities serving Tribal communities. While there, he joined White House Intergovernmental Affairs Director Tom Perez at the Ak-Chin Indian Community to highlight historic funding from the President’s Investing in America agenda for Indian Water Rights Settlements and high-speed affordable internet. And he toured the San Carlos Apache Indian Reservation and met with Indigenous servicemembers in the Phoenix area.

Secretary Haaland, Director Perez, Acting Deputy Secretary Laura Daniel-Davis and Assistant Secretary for Insular and International Affairs Carmen Cantor welcomed the elected leaders of Guam, American Samoa, the United States Virgin Islands and the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands to the annual Interagency Group on Insular Areas this week. In her remarks, the Secretary highlighted the historic investments in climate resilience, ecosystem restoration and infrastructure improvements in the territories, thanks to the Investing in American agenda.

And our social media Picture of the Week, a moment of awe at California's Sequoia & Kings Canyon National Park. This dramatic landscape testifies to nature's beauty and diversity, and her sheer size — huge mountains, rugged foothills, deep canyons, vast caverns and the world's largest trees.

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That's This Week at Interior.