This Week at Interior November 1, 2024

This Week at Interior  

Interior this week announced a nearly $82 million investment from President Biden’s Investing in America agenda to bring clean, safe drinking water to Tribal communities in the West. That will fund 23 projects through a new program at the Bureau of Reclamation established by the Inflation Reduction Act, the largest climate investment ever.  

The Department this week announced more than $74 million for Kentucky to address dangerous and polluting abandoned mine lands, while creating good-paying, family-sustaining jobs and catalyzing economic opportunity in coal communities. Millions of Americans nationwide live less than a mile from an abandoned coal mine -- the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law provides nearly $11.3 billion to address this legacy pollution over 15 years, facilitated by the Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement.

Interior this week announced that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, together with international partners Parks Canada, the Canada Department of Environment and Climate Change, and the Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources of the United Mexican States, signed a Letter of Intent strengthening cooperation and coordinating conservation of the American bison across its range. Secretary Haaland called the collaboration “an important step forward as we work to restore this majestic species and facilitate the return of bison to Tribally owned and ancestral lands.” Saturday November 2nd is National Bison Day.

Interior this week announced nearly $46 million in investments for ecosystem restoration activities that address high-priority Klamath Basin water-related challenges in southern Oregon and northern California. Through the President's Investing in America Agenda, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is devoting a total of $162 million over five years to the effort, including repairing local economies under agreements signed with local Tribes and landowners, along with state agencies and conservation partners.  

Assistant Secretary for Fish and Wildlife and Parks Shannon Estenoz traveled to Arizona and Tennessee this week, where the Land and Water Conservation Fund's Outdoor Recreation Legacy Partnership Program is helping expand and rehabilitate urban parks in Tucson and Memphis. These investments will increase access to the outdoors, create safer spaces, enhance the visitor experience, improve accessibility and boost climate resilience.  

The Provo River Delta Restoration Project is now complete. The nearly 260-acre project, supported by a $10 million investment through the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, is located a half-mile north of Utah Lake State Park. The restored delta provides an improved ecosystem for threatened June suckers, and the project expands recreational opportunities with trails, trailhead parking areas, nonmotorized boat launches, fishing platforms, and a wildlife-viewing observation tower.

The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management this week completed the sixth offshore wind lease sale of the Biden-Harris administration, and the first in the Gulf of Maine. This also marked the first commercial sale for floating offshore wind on the Atlantic Coast, in yet another significant milestone in the Biden-Harris administration’s work to meet the President’s goal of deploying 30 gigawatts of offshore wind energy capacity by 2030 and 15 gigawatts of floating offshore wind energy by 2035.  

The U.S. Geological Survey this week awarded $4.8 million to 36 state geological surveys to preserve vital geologic and geophysical data and samples. Funding for the agency’s National Geological and Geophysical Data Preservation Program from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law will expand capacity to safeguard physical samples like drill cores and geochemical samples, along with earth-science assets, all of which are crucial to future scientific discovery, critical mineral characterization, climate resilience and more.

And our social media Picture of the Week, some say it's haunted by spirits of the past, but there's no denying that the Great Dismal Swamp National Wildlife Refuge contains some of the most important wildlife habitat in the mid-Atlantic region. It's almost 113,000 acres straddling Virgina and North Carolina are also a haven for history, as the Great Dismal Swamp served as an invaluable hiding place for enslaved African Americans escaping to freedom before and during the Civil War.

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That's This Week at Interior!