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Rep. Deb Haaland, D-N.M.,
is sworn in before her Senate confirmation hearing to be interior
secretary last month. Her confirmation makes her the United
States' first Native American Cabinet secretary. (photo by
Jim Watson/AP)
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Deb Haaland, a member of New Mexico's Laguna Pueblo, has become
the first Native American Cabinet secretary in U.S. history.
The Senate voted 51-40 Monday to confirm the Democratic congresswoman
to lead the Interior Department, an agency that will play a crucial
role in the Biden administration's ambitious efforts to combat climate
change and conserve nature.
Her confirmation is as symbolic
as it is historic. For much of its history, the Interior Department
was used as a tool of oppression against America's Indigenous peoples.
In addition to managing the country's public lands, endangered species
and natural resources, the department is also responsible for the
government-to-government relations between the U.S. and Native American
tribes.
"Indian country has shouted from the valleys, from the mountaintops,
that it's time. It's overdue," Sandia Pueblo tribal member Stephine
Poston told
NPR after Haaland was nominated.
It's not the first time Haaland has made history. In 2018, she
became one of the first two Native American women elected
to Congress. Her nomination by President Biden to lead the Interior
Department was celebrated by tribal groups, environmental organizations
and lawmakers who called the action long
overdue. But her nomination faced opposition from Republican
lawmakers and industry groups that portrayed Haaland's stance on
various environmental issues as extreme.
"I'm deeply concerned with the congresswoman's support on several
radical issues that will hurt Montana, our way of life, our jobs
and rural America," said Republican Sen. Steve Daines of Montana,
who worked to block Haaland's confirmation.
As a congresswoman, Haaland was a frequent critic of the Trump
administration's deregulatory agenda and supported limits on fossil
fuel development on public lands. She opposes hydraulic fracturing,
or fracking. She was also one of the first lawmakers to support
the Green New Deal, which calls for drastic action to address climate
change and economic inequality.
Republican
lawmakers grilled her over those stances during her confirmation
hearing in an effort to portray her as a radical choice to manage
the nation's public lands, but Haaland struck a moderate tone, repeatedly
saying that as interior secretary she would aim to accomplish Biden's
environmental goals not her own.
Biden has not supported the Green New Deal or bans on fracking,
and he has taken a more balanced approach to fossil fuel development
on public lands. He put a temporary pause
on new oil and gas leases on federal lands while his administration
reviews the broader federal leasing program.
"There's no question that fossil energy does and will continue
to play a major role in America for years to come," Haaland said
during her confirmation hearing, before adding that climate change
must be addressed.
Haaland has called the climate crisis the "challenge of our lifetime,"
and as interior secretary, she'll play a key role in the Biden administration's
efforts to address it. Biden has pledged to make America carbon
neutral by 2050, an effort that would require massive changes to
the industrial, transportation and electricity sectors.
The Interior Department manages roughly one-fifth of all land in
the U.S., as well as offshore holdings. The extraction and use of
fossil fuels from those public lands account for about one-quarter
of the country's greenhouse gas emissions.
"The department has a role in harnessing the clean energy potential
of our public lands to create jobs and new economic opportunities,"
Haaland said during her confirmation hearing. "The president's agenda
demonstrates that America's public lands can and should be engines
for clean energy production."
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