The US Department of the Interior says it will award $120.8 million for a total of 146 projects focused on helping tribal communities address climate-related threats. Agency officials say the funding is the largest investment in the history of the Bureau of Indian Affairs’ annual Tribal Climate Awards program.
The investments will be drawn from a combination of funding from the Inflation Reduction Act, the Jobs and Infrastructure Investment Act and annual federal appropriations for fiscal year 2023. The funding is part of a total of $440 million of investment dollars from the Biden administration for tribal climate resiliency programs.
In 2020, the Bureau of Indian Affairs estimated that more than $4 billion would be needed over the next 50 years to protect tribal infrastructure threatened by the impacts of climate change. The greatest need is in Alaska, which will need more than $3 billion over the next few decades, the agency said. Surface air temperatures have risen steadily over the past 17 years, with the highest temperatures on record in 2023, according to the latest data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
“The most severe impacts of climate change fall disproportionately on communities that are least able to prepare and recover from it,” said Tom Perez, senior White House adviser to the president and director of intergovernmental affairs. , in a statement.
Funding awards include $4 million to the Alaska Native Village of Nelson Lagoon, a long, narrow sliver of land that is being washed out to sea by melting sea ice and more intense weather, for the construction of an erosion protection structure and a new 300,000 gallon. water storage tanks. The Ketchikan Indian Community of Alaska and $3.2 million will go to the Kashia Band of Pomo Indians of Stewarts Point Rancheria, California, for their share of a PG&E microgrid to prevent outages during intense storms.
Bryan Newland, assistant secretary for Indian affairs at the Department of the Interior, said in a statement that the funding will help tribes “protect their ability to exist on their homelands in the face of a changing climate.”
