Deb Haaland

People walk down the elevated, raised wooden sidewalks - created so people don’t sink into the melting permafrost - on July 5, 2015 in Newtok, Alaska.Photo: Andrew Burton (Getty Images)Three Native American communities are receiving millions of dollars from the federal government to relocate due to climate change-related risks to their homes, the U.S. Department of the Interior said in an announcement today.Three communities—one in Washington state and two in Alaska—will each receive $25 million from the Interior to help…

Schoolchildren walk beside severe erosion of the permafrost tundra next to their school at the climate change affected Yupik Eskimo village of Napakiak on the Yukon Delta in Alaska on April 18, 2019.Mark Ralston | AFP | Getty ImagesThe Department of the Interior under the Biden administration is providing three Native American tribes $75 million to relocate from coastal areas at risk of destruction, a decision that comes after tribes across the country competed for the first federal grants designed to relocate communities…

Trash collection in Yosemite National Park during a government shutdown in 2019. Photo: Carlos Avila Gonzalez/San Francisco Chronicle (AP)You’re hiking through glorious nature when you see it—a dirty, squished plastic water bottle along the trail. Instead of picking it up and impotently cursing the litterer, you can now take another small helpful step—you can report the trash to a new data project that aims to inspire policy change. Environmental nonprofit 5 Gyres is asking national park visitors in the U.S. to logtrash…

An oil and gas drilling platform stands offshore as waves churned from Tropical Storm Karen come ashore in Dauphin Island, Alabama, October 5, 2013.Steve Nesius | ReutersThe Biden administration released a five-year offshore oil and gas drilling development plan on Friday that would block all new drilling in the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans within U.S. waters, but would allow some lease sales in the Gulf of Mexico and the south coast of Alaska.The proposed plan, which has not been finalized, could allow up to 11 lease…

Plastic and other debris on the beach on Midway Atoll in the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands. Photo: Caleb Jones (AP)Hundreds of millions of people visit U.S. national parks every single year. They take photos, they hike, they soak in the sights… and they leave behind single-use plastic items.All around the majestic expanses of protected wilderness, there are plastic bottles lyingin grass, wrappers floating in rivers, and disposable bags tangled in tree branches. To combat this, the U.S. Department of the Interior…

Trash in the saw grass at the Big Cypress National Preserve Park.Jeff Greenberg | Universal Images Group | Getty ImagesThe U.S. Interior Department said on Wednesday it will phase out the sale of single-use plastic products in national parks and other public lands by 2032, in an attempt to mitigate a major contributor to plastic pollution as the country's recycling rate continues to decline.Interior Secretary Deb Haaland issued an order to reduce the procurement, sale and distribution of such products and packaging on…

WASHINGTON—The Biden administration canceled plans to auction drilling rights in three regions off the U.S. coastline later this year, adding more friction to an uneasy relationship with the oil industry during a period of high gasoline prices.The decision to cancel lease sales for two regions in the Gulf of Mexico and one off the coast of Alaska leaves oil-and-gas companies facing a blackout period of unknown length for access to new drilling spots in valuable offshore acreage. A five-year schedule for offshore lease…