United States Secretary of the Interior | |
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United States Department of the Interior | |
Style | Madam Secretary (informal) The Honorable (formal) |
Member of | Cabinet |
Reports to | President of the United States |
Seat | Washington, D.C. |
Appointer | President of the United States with Senate advice and consent |
Term length | No fixed term |
Constituting instrument | 43 U.S.C. § 1451 |
Formation | March 3, 1849 |
First holder | Thomas Ewing |
Succession | Eighth [1] |
Deputy | United States Deputy Secretary of the Interior |
Salary | Executive Schedule, Level I |
Website | doi.gov |
The United States secretary of the interior is the head of the United States Department of the Interior. The secretary and the Department of the Interior are responsible for the management and conservation of most federal land along with natural resources, leading such agencies as the Bureau of Land Management, the United States Geological Survey, Bureau of Indian Affairs and the National Park Service. The secretary also serves on and appoints the private citizens on the National Park Foundation Board. The secretary is a member of the United States Cabinet and reports to the president of the United States. The function of the U.S. Department of the Interior is different from that of the interior minister designated in many other countries.
As the policies and activities of the Department of the Interior and many of its agencies have a substantial impact in the Western United States, [2] the secretary of the interior has typically come from a western state; only one secretary since 1949, Rogers Morton, was not a resident or native of a state lying west of the Mississippi River.
Secretary of the Interior is a Level I position in the Executive Schedule, [3] thus earning a salary of US$246,400, as of January 2024. [4]
Following Senate confirmation in March 2021, former U.S. representative Deb Haaland was sworn in as the secretary of the interior, the first Native American to hold the position. [5]
The line of succession for the secretary of interior is as follows: [6]
Whig (3) Democratic (17) Republican (33)
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The United States Forest Service (USFS) is an agency within the U.S. Department of Agriculture that administers the nation's 154 national forests and 20 national grasslands covering 193 million acres (780,000 km2) of land. The major divisions of the agency are the Chief's Office, National Forest System, State and Private Forestry, Business Operations, as well as Research and Development. The agency manages about 25% of federal lands and is the sole major national land management agency not part of the U.S. Department of the Interior.
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