The United States Department of the Interior (DOI) is the United States federal executive department of the U.S. government responsible for the management and conservation of most federal land and natural resources, and the administration of programs relating to Native Americans, Alaska Natives, Native Hawaiians, territorial affairs, and to insular areas of the United States.
The Department is administered by the United States Secretary of the Interior, who is a member of the Cabinet of the President. The current Secretary is Ken Salazar of Colorado.
Despite its name, the Department of the Interior has a different role from that of the interior ministries of other nations, which are usually responsible for routine police functions which are largely performed in the U.S. by state and local governments and national security and immigration functions which are performed by the Department of Homeland Security primarily and the Department of Justice secondarily.
The Department has often been humorously called "The Department of Everything Else" because of its broad range of responsibilities.
Read more about United States Department Of The Interior: History, Native Americans, Operating Units, Controversy
Famous quotes containing the words united states, united, states, department and/or interior:
“The United States must be neutral in fact as well as in name.... We must be impartial in thought as well as in action ... a nation that neither sits in judgment upon others nor is disturbed in her own counsels and which keeps herself fit and free to do what is honest and disinterested and truly serviceable for the peace of the world.”
—Woodrow Wilson (1856–1924)
“... the yearly expenses of the existing religious system ... exceed in these United States twenty millions of dollars. Twenty millions! For teaching what? Things unseen and causes unknown!... Twenty millions would more than suffice to make us wise; and alas! do they not more than suffice to make us foolish?”
—Frances Wright (1795–1852)
“I would rather be known as an advocate of equal suffrage than to speak every night on the best-paying platforms in the United States and ignore it.”
—Anna Howard Shaw (1847–1919)
“... the Department of Justice is committed to asking one central question of everything we do: What is the right thing to do? Now that can produce debate, and I want it to be spirited debate. I want the lawyers of America to be able to call me and tell me: Janet, have you lost your mind?”
—Janet Wood Reno (b. 1938)
“The monk in hiding himself from the world becomes not less than himself, not less of a person, but more of a person, more truly and perfectly himself: for his personality and individuality are perfected in their true order, the spiritual, interior order, of union with God, the principle of all perfection.”
—Thomas Merton (1915–1968)