Rep. Debra Haaland (D-New Mexico) prepares to testify as secretary of the interior nominee during a Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee confirmation hearing in Washington Feb. 24. (Newscom/SplashNews/Pool via CNP/Sarah Silbiger)
Indigenous tribes and environmental faith groups celebrated the confirmation of Deb Haaland as the next secretary of the interior, who is set to be sworn in March 17 as the first Native American to serve in the Cabinet and as custodian of the nation’s 500 million acres of public lands.
The U.S. Senate on Monday voted 50-41 in support of Haaland’s appointment by President Joe Biden to head the Department of the Interior. The vote fell largely along party lines, with just four Republicans in favor.
In a statement after the vote, Haaland, a member of the Laguna Pueblo in New Mexico who in 2018 became one of the first two Native American women elected to Congress, thanked the Senate and expressed openness to working with all members.
“I am ready to serve,” she said.
The news was hailed by Native Americans across the country. The Indigenous Environmental Network called the Haaland confirmation “a historic and necessary step to healing the tribal relationships with the United States.”
“We know that Haaland will help the administration find its path in confronting climate change, addressing the COVID-19 pandemic in Indian Country, ensuring an effective economic just recovery plan for Native nations and Indigenous communities, overseeing the protection of public lands, and fulfilling treaty and statutory obligations to the first peoples of Turtle Island,” the organization said.
Terry Sloan, a member of the Navajo and Hopi people and director of Southwest Native Cultures in Albuquerque, told EarthBeat in an email that Haaland’s confirmation signals “the beginning of a ‘new era’ of respectful land management and a new era of government-to-government relationships between Native American tribes.”
Sloan, who like Haaland is Catholic and first worked with her on Barack Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign, added that her upbringing in the Laguna Pueblo culture and traditions will bring a holistic Native perspective not seen before at such a high level of the federal government.
“I anticipate that the People will be heard, and action will be taken on their concerns of addressing environmental desecration to the land, air, and our sacred water,” he said.
Haaland’s appointment to a Cabinet position is historic in itself, but the post she will hold carries both symbolic and potentially substantial consequences for the nation’s public lands and 574 Native tribes.
As head of the Department of the Interior, Haaland will have oversight of the management of one-fifth of the…
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