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Housing a Law No. 105-65, 105 bl65.pdf (acces rom the public housin o ensure among eligible tenan

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g mode hat the supp s. Thi

ban Development, and h Congress, October 27, 1997, sed March 5, 2023).

| toward housing ly of housing units

Ss Issue has been addressed • department during the Trump Administration, but istration of the program.

16

DEPARTMENT OF

THE INTERIOR William Perry Pendley

he U.S. Department of the Interior (DOD oversees, manages, and protects

the nation’s natural resources and cultural heritage; provides scientific

and other information about those resources; and honors the nation’s trust responsibilities or special commitments to American Indians, Alaska Natives, and affiliated island communities.

AGENCY OVERVIEW

DOI’s purview encompasses more than 500 million acres of federal lands, including national parks and national wildlife refuges; 700 million acres of subsurface minerals; 1.7 billion acres of the Outer Continental Shelf (OCS); 23 percent of the nation’s energy; water in 17 western states; and trust responsibilities for 566 Indian tribes and Alaska Natives. DOI’s 2024 budget request totals $18.9 billion, an increase of $2 billion, or 12 percent, more than the 2023 enacted level. The budget also provides an estimated $12.6 billion in permanent funding in 2024. In 2024, DOI will generate receipts of $19.6 billion.

A “Home Department” had been considered in 1789 and urged by Presidents over the decades until DOI’s creation in 1849. The variety of its early responsibilities—the Indian Bureau, the General Land Office, the Bureau of Pensions, and the Patent Office, among others—earned it various nicknames, including “Great Miscellany,” “hydra-headed monster,” and “Mother of Departments.” Its mission became more focused on natural resources with the rise of the conservation movement in the early 20th century; however, it kept its historic (since the days of the Founding Fathers) role as overseer of vast working landscapes involving grazing,

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