This Week at Interior June 14, 2024

This Week at Interior  

Interior this week announced a Memorandum of Understanding between the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management and the State of Maryland to support the coordinated development of offshore wind energy generation. Secretary Haaland and BOEM Director Elizabeth Klein joined federal, state and local leaders to make the announcement at a signing ceremony in Annapolis. Under the agreement, BOEM and the State of Maryland will continue ongoing efforts to explore and identify potential areas for offshore wind leasing, while the Central Atlantic Intergovernmental Renewable Energy Task Force will continue to enhance collaboration between BOEM, the state and other stakeholders.

Acting Deputy Secretary Laura Daniel-Davis visited Las Vegas this week as the Bureau of Land Management announced completion of the final environmental analysis of the proposed Greenlink West Transmission Project. That's a series of transmission lines that would connect Reno and Las Vegas, helping deliver clean energy from the Nevada desert to the Western electric grid. The project crosses about 470 miles of BLM-managed public lands -- once completed it could transmit up to 4 gigawatts of clean energy, enough to power at least 1.2 million homes.

The Acting Deputy Secretary also traveled to Reno, where she announced a $142 million investment from President Biden's Investing in America Agenda to boost water supplies and advance drought resilience across the West. The selected projects are expected to provide about 40,000 acre-feet of annual recycled water, enough to support more than 160,000 people a year.  

Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement Director Kevin Sligh and Interior’s Senior Advisor and Infrastructure Coordinator Winnie Stachelberg this week surveyed the progress of a project to decommission orphaned wells in the Gulf of Mexico's Matagorda Island area, about 12 miles off the Texas coast. Funded in part by the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, this work will minimize the risk of environmental pollution and safety incidents, including securing wellheads, removing hazardous materials, and preparing for well plugging, which will permanently seal the wells.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service this week announced $14 million in grants through the Clean Vessel Act Grant program. The grants provide states, territories and the District of Columbia up to a million and a half dollars annually for the construction and renovation of recreational boat facilities and are aimed at improving water quality and increasing opportunities for fishing, shellfish harvests and safer swimming in the nation’s waterways.  

The National Park Service this week announced a more than $15 million dollar investment from the President’s Investing in America agenda to build climate resilience, address climate change impacts, and restore healthy lands and waters at national parks and in surrounding communities across the country. The investment is the final part of a $210 million dollar program from the Inflation Reduction Act to fund restoration and resilience projects in our National Parks.

And our social media Picture of the Week, golden hour at Gold Butte National Monument in Nevada. Gold Butte is a remote and rugged desert landscape where dramatically chiseled red sandstone, twisting canyons and tree-clad mountains punctuate stretches of the Mojave Desert.  

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That's This Week at Interior!