Haaland to Department of the Interior: It’s history
Deb Haaland isn’t through making history. One of the first Native women elected to Congress, the Laguna Pueblo member and U.S. representative from Albuquerque broke another barrier Thursday when President-elect Joe Biden nominated her to serve as secretary of the Department of the Interior.
If confirmed, she will be the first Native in the Cabinet, charged with running the Department of the Interior, founded in 1849. It manages vast stretches of the West, including the many places where tribal people once lived and still do. Under the department’s umbrella is the Bureau of Indian Affairs, the agency that has been the point of contact with Native people and 574 federally recognized tribes.
It is impossible to put into words just how significant an appointment this is for Native people. Tribes from across the country had supported Haaland’s nomination.
Yes, she brings representation to the
Cabinet that shatters barriers, making our government reflect varied experiences and backgrounds, just as Biden promised.
But she also is someone whose fellow House members — the people who work closest with her — supported for the job, including House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. Backing came from Democrats and even some Republicans. That’s a recognition of skills, knowledge and an ability to work with others — all characteristics that will serve her well on the Cabinet.
U.S. Rep. Raúl Grijalva of Arizona, chairman of the House Natural Resources Committee, took himself out of contention for the post. Of Haaland, he said: “She’s real. She’s authentic. She’s legitimate. And she should have it.”
U.S. Rep. Tom Cole, a Republican from Oklahoma, knows Haaland from co-chairing the Congressional Native Caucus with her. His thoughts? “While we belong to different parties, I consider Congresswoman Deb Haaland a valued colleague and a good friend,” he said.
Several Biden advisers appeared skeptical of Haaland, just as some were when Kamala Harris was being vetted for vice president. Haaland lacked experience to run the sprawling bureaucracy. She didn’t have the policy chops they wanted. She supported the Green New Deal, a potential roadblock to confirmation.
They were soundly beaten back. Even a last-minute attempt to keep Haaland in the House — it might compromise the slim Democratic majority — ended after Pelosi endorsed her, noting Haaland “is one of the most respected and one of the best members of Congress I have served with.”
Her experience in Congress matters, of course, but her lived experience is essential.
That includes cooking for hundreds at a feast day, raising a daughter as a single mother, selling homemade salsa to pay for law school, working the cornfields at Laguna Pueblo, supervising tribal enterprises and running the New Mexico Democratic Party.
She has been active helping New Mexicans protect sacred sites from overly aggressive oil and gas drilling, been a leader in seeking justice for missing and murdered Indigenous women, and understands public lands are more than a profit base. She is eager to help transform U.S. reliance on fossil fuels, furthering Biden’s goal of slowing global warming. The Department of the Interior is critical in that effort because it manages roughly a fifth of the land in the United States.
Like the other New Mexicans in the running for the post — including retiring U.S. Sen. Tom Udall, another excellent candidate — Haaland has a connection with the land and people of the interior West, where the federal government balanced competing interests in protecting our shared heritage. As she puts it, she’s a “35th generation” New Mexican.
Once confirmed, we expect Haaland to be a voice for people too long ignored, to clean up the mess left by Trump appointees and to direct policy that puts the planet and people first. She was and remains a trailblazer, making New Mexico and the nation proud.