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The Interior Department is reopening lease sales on public lands. However, the agency announced that it was 80% less acreage than the oil and gas industry nominated for leasing. The Interior also increased royalty rates.

Lake Powell is is strained by more than two decades of drought, and its water levels are dipping dangerously low. The reservoir passed an important threshold. Water levels went below 3,525 feet – the last major milestone before a threat to hydropower generation at the Glen Canyon Dam. What's next for the nation's second-largest reservoir?

Interior Secretary Deb Haaland recently announced she will remove some federal oversight from tribal water rules. A memorandum that dates back to 1975 required federal approvals for tribes to change their water codes, but now that’s no longer the case.

The Interior Department’s Deputy Secretary is visiting several places around the West to tout federal funding for wildland firefighting. That included a stop in Boise on Monday, where he toured the National Interagency Fire Center and attended a briefing on this year’s upcoming fire season.

Tribes, including many of those in the Colorado River basin, have some of the oldest water rights in the region, but often lack the infrastructure to use their full allotments. The new federal money is designed to fund the construction of reservoirs, pumping stations and clean drinking water systems that help tribes use more of the water they’re owed.

The Biden administration wants Congress to increase drilling companies' royalty rates, which have stayed at 12.5% for 100 years.

The U.S. Interior Department is expanding access to hunting and fishing on about 2.1 million acres of Fish and Wildlife Service land. That’s nearly the size of Yellowstone National Park. While hunters and anglers applaud the efforts, other conservation groups believe that refuges shouldn’t have hunting or angling at all.

Interior Secretary Deb Haaland faced lawmakers on Capitol Hill Tuesday as she advocated for an $18 billion budget increase for her department next year. The money would go towards advancing renewable energy projects, expanding wildland fire programs and boosting public safety on reservations.

Representatives praised budget increases to the Bureau of Indian Affairs and efforts to address the crisis of missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls. But some wanted more funding for water infrastructure and others questioned Biden's plans on mining and fossil fuel production.

The Colorado River’s biggest reservoirs are likely to drop to historically low levels later this year, prompting mandatory conservation by some of the river’s heaviest users.