The format for this week’s digest Memo is slightly different from past weeks, giving a bit more information on one key news topic from the week (funding), plus a bit of information about upcoming Memos. Be sure to use the thumbsup / thumbsdown at the end if you are moved one way or the other, or to drop us an email if you’d like.

What happened

Funding for Interior. This week, the main thing to share requires a bit more explanation and context. The US House of Representatives Appropriations subcommittees overseeing Interior’s funding met and passed two Fiscal Year 2026 funding bills that now go to the full committee for consideration and votes. 

1. Water - Reclamation. The Energy and Water subcommittee, which oversees the Bureau of Reclamation’s budget, increased funding for the Bureau by about $5 million despite the Trump administration’s requests for big ($600 million) cuts. While the bill doesn’t provide detail to the level of programs like WaterSMART—which the Trump administration proposed to eliminate—it looks like they remain funded. 
2. Cuts for parks and public lands, wildlife and science. The subcommittee on Interior and related agencies (like EPA) made substantial cuts to big chunks of the Department. That includes:
   1. Cuts of 15% to nearly 30% for the Solicitor’s office, the Inspector General’s office, and the Office of the Secretary—these are not good signs for the rule of law or top-level leadership. 
   2. For the bureaus, the cuts of 5-9% for the National Park Service, the Fish and Wildlife Service, the Bureau of Land Management, and the US Geological Survey. This is on top of the effective cut from the FY 2025 flat budget of the Continuing Resolution. Evidently House Republicans think the American public wants less support and access to parks, fewer wildlife, inadequate access to our public lands, and science on everything from natural hazards to ecosystems to water? Weird.
   3. Good news (?): While the bill doesn’t yet contain details to be certain, it looks like the House maintains USGS’s Ecosystem Mission Area, which the Trump administration proposed eliminating (and may still try to eliminate). That means science for climate adaptation, migratory birds, even the bee lab. 🤞
3. Interior increases. But some Interior bureaus get boosts in the House’s bill, like the bureaus of Indian Affairs and Indian Education, which need this additional support and more. And unsurprisingly, the fossil fuel-focused bureaus like the BSEE, Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, and OSMRE get boosts. As with other cases above, we don’t have much detail yet, but it appears that BOEM’s renewable energy program, which the Trump administration proposed to eliminate, would be funded given the levels that passed. 
4. Rescinding already-appropriated funding. Friday, 18 July, is the deadline for Congress to pass or refuse to pass a big rescissions package. Late Wednesday night, the Senate finally passed it, sent it back to the House, and the House is expected to pass it. To be clear, this current rescissions package does not directly affect Interior; it’s focused on cutting funding for a variety of foreign affairs programs and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (seriously, Elmo and Big Bird are a threat?). Why does this matter for Interior? Because the White House has indicated they will be proposing more rescissions, with extra emphasis on not being bipartisan, which could include rescissions of funding for Interior. How the current package fares could be a bellwether.

Other news of note:

• The implications from last week’s Supreme Court decision to allow Trump administration Reductions In Forces (RIFs) to proceed aren’t yet known for Interior but could be significant for Interior, though some agencies may be thinking twice about cuts. There are many resources out there for feds who may be impacted.
• Secretary Burgum’s turn-of-phrase, “We need energy addition, not energy transition,” which conveys energy growth (at all costs?) might seem to imply continuing to grow renewables. But that’s clearly just lip service.
• The administration’s war on clean energy is supported by Congress, including cuts to clean energy in Indian Country.
• Congress has used the Congressional Review Act (CRA) extensively to rapidly overturn a lot of rules and regulations from the Biden administration. Interior mostly got their rules done early enough that the CRA doesn’t apply, but there is a case where late paperwork from the Bureau of Land Management means new attempts are underway.
• The Department transferred 28,000 acres to an Alaska Native Corporation under ANILCA, which may have implications for mining in wilderness and impacts on subsistence users. Read more (sub. req.)
• The Bureau of Reclamation and the Colorado River states may soon have a new way to figure out which states get how much water. It’s been described as “revolutionary” in various news accounts, but I think The Land Desk’s description is better: coming to our senses. Lots of good information in the post!
• Some interesting new research comparing wildland fire burn probability maps against what actually burned, in California. Seems like this information is really valuable for preparing for and mitigating the risks presented by wildland fires.
• The lack of clean drinking water for Tribal communities is getting more attention from the Hill, and the inadequacy of water data in Indian Country that can help address the issue is getting attention from policy researchers.
• The headline speaks for itself: “National Park Service Quietly Edits Out Bisexuals From Stonewall Page” 

What’s coming

1. On the Hill. Next week, House Natural Resources oversight is holding a hearing on NEPA that is labeled “restoring common sense” but will probably be more about taking away the opportunity for the public to shape federal actions that impact their lives. (And research shows that ⅔ of the time, public engagement substantively changes proposed actions.) We’ll have a bit more to say about this in a couple weeks—see below.
2. Next Interior Memos. We’re queuing up Memos further in advance, noting that new developments or events may require rescheduling. Here are two upcoming:
   1. The Social Cost of AI. Next week’s Next Interior Memo (on Tuesday) will discuss the need to address the “social cost of AI,” that is, accounting for the damages of AI that society has to bear but has been overlooking. This is an analog to the well established concept of the social cost of carbon in climate policy work. Because of the importance of energy and land use impacts among the social costs of AI, the Department will have significant responsibilities either bearing the cost or helping mitigate the cost in coming years.
   2. Public engagement and NEPA. In two weeks, the Tuesday Memo will focus on the importance of public engagement in Interior’s work, why the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) is critical to that process, and why current efforts in the name of “streamlining” really mean cutting out democratic engagement. It will be our first guest-written memo, from Ryan Fleetwood, who interned with the Department’s lead office for NEPA a couple years ago. Keep an eye out!
3. Next Interior Fellows. In case you missed it, we have an opportunity to support two Fellows this fall! The application window is open until 05 August and the application is pretty simple—a 1-pager plus a 2-page resume. We’ll provide a couple more reminders in the coming weeks.

Beyond Interior

Our focus at Next Interior is the Department of the Interior, how it serves the Nation, and how that can look in the future. While we generally won’t stray too far from that, sometimes it’s important to remember that Interior is one piece in a very big and complicated country. Those different pieces have stay within some critical bounds for the system to work; if they don’t, then institutions will break down…we don’t want to find out what happens next. 

With that in mind, I’d encourage everyone to read this article from Radley Balko, the best journalist and writer on civil liberties and policing in America, about the emergence of the new paramilitary force we’re seeing today. It’s a long read, and hard in many ways, but well worth your time for making sense of so much that’s going on in that arena.

Parting shot