Interior Secretary Ken Salazar signed an order on Monday to coordinate the Interior Department's response to climate change.

The order is designed to address current and future impacts of climate change on land, water, ocean, fish, wildlife, cultural and tribal resources. It creates a Climate Change Response Council, to be led by Salazar, eight regional Climate Change Response Centers and a group of Landscape Conservation Cooperatives that will work with tribal, local and state governments and other partners.

“The unprecedented scope of climate change impacts requires Interior bureaus and agencies to work together, and with other federal, state, tribal and local governments, and private landowner partners, to develop landscape-level strategies for understanding and responding to climate change impacts,” said Salazar.

Salazar signed the order at the Interior building in Washington, D.C. He was joined by other top officials, including Deputy Secretary David Hayes and Bureau of Reclamation Michael Connor, both of whom have worked on Indian water rights, and Tracie Stevens, a member of the Tulalip Tribes of Washington who works as an adviser to Assistant Secretary Larry EchoHawk.

Get the Story:
Interior Launches Climate Strategy (The Washington Post 9/15)
Interior Dept. gets ready for global warming (AP 9/14)
Press Release: Salazar Launches DOI Climate Change Response Strategy (DOI 9/14)

Relevant Documents:
U.S. Department of the Interior Climate Change Response Strategy