DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR

Advancing the President’s National Parks Centennial Initiative

Source: Michelle Crutchfield Half Dome at Yosemite National Park, California.

• National Parks Centennial Initiative. $2.1 billion for park operations, 45 percent more than when the Administration began.

  • Enhances visitor services with more seasonal rangers and volunteers.

  • Preserves historic buildings, archeological sites, battlefields, and cultural resources.

  • Restores wildlife habitat, native vegetation, and natural resources.

  • Improves visitor centers, campgrounds, trails, and other park facilities.

  • Invests in park rangers and other employees who protect our national parks for future generations.

• Centennial Challenge. Up to $100 million annually for 10 years to match private donations to national parks.

Expanding Domestic Energy Opportunities

• Affordable energy resources. Enhances energy security by encouraging domestic energy exploration and production.

  • $9 million to study new geographic areas in the next five-year offshore oil and gas leasing plan.

  • $1 million to support development of alternative energy in the Outer Continental Shelf.

  • Supports the authorization of environmentally responsible exploration and development on the coastal plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

• Strong financial return on Federal energy resource development.

  • Repeals select provisions in the 2005 Energy Policy Act, including unnecessary deepwater royalty relief incentives and a prohibition on new fees for oil and gas permit processing.

  • Reflects increased royalty rates for offshore oil and gas production in the Gulf of Mexico, including a further increase to 18.75 percent for the next lease sale in March 2008.

Enhancing Knowledge of Our Water Resources with a Water Security Initiative

• National Water Census. $8 million for a census to evaluate the status of aquifer and reservoir storage, surface and groundwater flows, water quality, and water use.

  • Expands networks of streamgages to assess long-term national trends in streamflows.

  • Creates an integrated system to track and study groundwater.

  • Enhances water modeling capabilities based on improved knowledge of the interaction between surface water and groundwater.

• Water conservation and basin studies. $13 million to partner with State and local agencies to promote the efficient use of water through a competitive grant process.

  • Conserves water by improving water-use efficiency.

  • Increases water availability by assessing the impact of increased water demand and changing demographics on water supply.

  • Prevents the decline of species by proactively addressing adverse environmental impacts on habitats.

Protecting Wildlife through Cooperative Conservation

• President’s Migratory Bird Initiative. $9 million to improve the status of bird populations through cooperation with private landowners, corporations, non-profit organizations, and the government of Mexico.

  • Contributes to improving the status of five migratory bird species to healthy and sustainable levels over the next five years.

  • $4 million to strengthen existing joint ventures and enhance migratory bird joint ventures along the Rio Grande Corridor, the Appalachian Mountains, and on the Northern Great Plains.

  • Prepares a State of the Birds report that, for the first time, will report on the status of all birds and identify species that need additional protections.

  • Improves more than 200,000 acres of migratory bird habitat within National Wildlife Refuges.

Major Savings and Reforms

• Reduces or eliminates programs because they duplicate other Federal programs or are not Federal responsibilities, including:

  • $13 million reduction for Bureau of Indian Affairs roads maintenance, since Tribes could use about $100 million in Department of Transportation funds for Indian Reservation Roads.

  • $20 million reduction for Office of Surface Mining discretionary grants for coal mining reclamation, which can be replaced with the recently revised Abandoned Mine Land grant program that will provide $2 billion over 10 years.

• Institutes management reforms to improve agency efficiency and effectiveness.

  • Standardizes business practices and eliminates redundant legacy systems through the Financial Business and Management System.

  • Targets investments in national park facilities to meet the President’s goal of restoring park facilities to acceptable condition overall as measured by the Facility Condition Index.

  • Improves management and oversight of Wildland Fire funds by reassigning the account to the Office of the Secretary.

Since 2001, the Department of the Interior has:

• Restored or enhanced more than 5 million acres and 5,000 stream and shoreline miles in cooperation with others.

• Assessed and tracked changes in the condition of Interior facilities, including all national parks, for the first time in history.

• Contributed to meeting the Nation’s energy needs by more than doubling annual oil and gas permit processing on Federal lands.

• Restored, improved, and protected more than 3 million acres of wetlands habitat for migratory birds, and other fish and wildlife.

• Treated 7.7 million acres through the hazardous fuels reduction program on lands managed by the Department. The Department maintains its commitment to monitoring fuels allocation funding by using the National Fire Plan measures.

• Increased funding to combat drug trafficking and the methamphetamine problem in Indian Country.

• Restored over 10,000 acres of fish habitat and conserved more than 800,000 acre-feet of water in the Klamath Basin while addressing multiple competing demands for water in the Basin. The Administration appreciates the progress of States, Tribes, and private parties toward a basin-wide conservation agreement and will continue to work with those parties on a cooperative conservation program.