The U.S. Department of the Interior (DOI) "protects America’s natural resources and heritage, honors our cultures and tribal communities, and supplies the energy to power our future".  Measured in economic terms, the Department’s programs support approximately $370 billion in economic activity each year and 1.4 million jobs. The DOI manages the Nation’s public lands and minerals, including providing access to public lands and the Outer Continental Shelf for renewable and conventional energy; is the steward of 20 percent of the Nation’s lands including national parks, national wildlife refuges, and the public lands; is the largest supplier and manager of water in the 17 western states and a supplier of hydropower energy; and upholds Federal trust responsibilities to Indian tribes and Alaska Natives. DOI's charter is to be responsible for migratory wildlife conservation; historic preservation; endangered species conservation; surface-mined lands protection and restoration; mapping, geological, hydrological, and biological science for the Nation; and financial and technical assistance for the insular areas.

The National Park Service, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Bureau of Indian Affairs, Bureau of Land Management, Office of Surface Mining, Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, U.S. Geological Survey, Bureau of Reclamation, and the Office of Insular Affairs are public agencies administered by the DOI. 

In 2009, the DOI launched a strategy to address current and future impacts of climate change on U.S. land, water, wildlife, cultural-heritage and tribal resources. The strategy is designed for the bureaus to coordinate climate-change science and resource-management strategies, utilizing a Climate Change Response Council, eight DOI Regional Climate Science Centers (CSCs), and a network of Landscape Conservation Cooperatives(LCCs).

The Climate Change Response Council will coordinate the response to the impacts of climate change, and improve the sharing and communication of climate-change impact science, within and among DOI bureaus.  The Climate Science Centers - serving Alaska, the Northeast, the Southeast, the Southwest, the Midwest, the West, Northwest, and Pacific regions - will synthesize existing climate-change-impact data and management strategies, help resource managers put them into action on the ground, and engage the public through education initiatives. 

CSCs will deliver basic climate-change-impact science to Landscape Conservation Cooperatives within their respective regions, including physical and biological research, ecological forecasting, and multi-scale modeling. The LCCs interconnect DOI and other federal agencies, local and state partners, and the public to build practical, landscape-level strategies for managing climate-change impacts within the eight regions. LCCs will focus on impacts that typically extend beyond the borders of any single National Wildlife Refuge, Bureau of Land Management unit, or National Park such as wildfire risk, drought, invasive species, or the effects of climate change on wildlife migration patterns.