The National Park Service has awarded $7 million in the inaugural round of funding for the Semiquincentennial Grant Program commemorating the 250th anniversary of the founding of the United States. Created by Congress in 2020 and funded through the Historic Preservation Fund, this round of grants will support 17 cultural resource preservation projects across 12 states.

As wildfires go, the Tunnel Fire that overran Sunset Crater Volcano National Monument in April was not headline-grabbing outside of Arizona, but it inflicted enough damage on the park and surrounding national forest lands to keep the monument closed for months.

Nine Native American tribes and 20 museums are benefiting from $2.1 million in National Park Service grants to help with the consultation, documentation and repatriation of ancestral remains and cultural items as part of the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act.

Conservation groups are applauding Senate passage of the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022, which carries about $1 billion for the National Park Service to hire more staff and continue to prepare for climate change.