Tag Archives: Interior Secretary Deb Haaland

U.S. calls on nations to set bold targets for offshore wind

(Reuters) – A top Biden administration official on Thursday challenged nations to join the United States in setting aggressive goals to expand electricity production from offshore wind.

Interior Secretary Deb Haaland issued the call during an appearance at the United Nations climate change conference in Glasgow.

The administration of President Joe Biden has moved swiftly this year to support a nascent offshore wind industry in the United States, a key part of its plan to decarbonize the power sector by 2035 and address global warming.

But it has stumbled in its effort to restrict fossil fuel development on federal lands after a court in June ordered the government to resume drilling auctions that were paused by Biden in January.

“We are in an exciting time – and the Biden-Harris administration is taking bold action to advance clean energy to make people’s lives better and build a more sustainable future,” Haaland said. “Together, we need to set ambitious goals and commit the resources to get it done.”

The White House earlier this year set a target of deploying 30 gigawatts of offshore wind energy along every U.S. coastline by 2030. That would be enough electricity to power 10 million homes.

The 30-GW goal is roughly the amount that already exists in Europe’s two-decade old industry, but is a tall order for a nation that currently has just two small offshore wind farms.

Interior permitted what is expected to be the first major U.S. offshore wind farm, the 800 megawatt Vineyard Wind project off the coast of Massachusetts, in May.

(Reporting by Nichola Groom; Editing by Marguerita Choy)

U.S. Interior Dept. moves to restore Native American land

By Valerie Volcovici

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The Interior Department on Tuesday said it is taking several steps to make it easier for Native American tribes to take land back into trust and simplify a process that was slowed by the Trump administration.

Interior Secretary Deb Haaland issued a secretarial order that re-delegated authority to review and approve applications by tribes to regional Bureau of Indian Affairs directors, a reversal of a Trump-era order that gave jurisdiction to the Interior Department’s headquarters, which led to delays.

The policy of placing tribal lands in federal trust lets tribes re-acquire historic land and aims to remedy federal policies dating back more than a century that have resulted in Native American tribes losing their land base across the United States.

“At Interior, we have an obligation to work with Tribes to protect their lands and ensure that each Tribe has a homeland where its citizens can live together and lead safe and fulfilling lives,” Haaland, the first Native American U.S. cabinet secretary, said in a statement.

“Our actions today will help us meet that obligation and will help empower Tribes to determine how their lands are used – from conservation to economic development projects,” she said.

In recent years, tribes have faced delays and high costs to develop housing projects, manage law enforcement agencies and other economic development activities because of a patchwork of landholdings within existing reservation boundaries.

An Interior Department official told reporters there are roughly 1,000 pending applications by tribes to put land into trust, the majority of which are sections of land located within existing reservation boundaries.

The official said that during the Obama Administration, 560,000 acres of land were placed into trust for tribes, whereas under the Trump Administration, only 75,000 acres had been placed into trust.

By making it easier for tribes to re-acquire land, the Biden Administration hopes to make it easier for tribes to attract investment and business projects and avoid facing complex layers of regulatory and taxation hurdles, the official said.

(Reporting by Valerie Volcovici; Editing by Dan Grebler)