New Mexico’s Deb Haaland named to Interior
Will the first Native American woman in Biden’s Cabinet make a difference?
Laguna Pueblo citizen and New Mexico Rep. Deb Haaland, 60, has been chosen by President-elect Joe Biden as his nominee to head up the United States Department of the Interior.
“It is truly a historic and unprecedented day for all Indigenous people as Congresswoman Deb Haaland has been selected to head one of the largest federal agencies, which oversees the [Bureau of Indian Affairs] and [Bureau of Indian Education], at the highest level of the federal government,” said Navajo Nation President Jonathan Nez in a Thursday (Dec. 17) statement. “I congratulate her and I also thank the Biden-Harris team for making a statement and keeping their word to place Native Americans in highlevel cabinet positions.”
Haaland’s name was announced along with that of
Michael Regan, who has been picked to direct the Environmental Protection Agency. Haaland still faces confirmation by the Senate after Biden takes office Jan. 20. If confirmed, she would be the first Native American to head the department.
Regan, in addition to being the first Black man to head the EPA, is “currently the head of the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality,” according to an NBC News report. “He previously worked for the EPA during the
Bill Clinton and George W. Bush administrations. Before leaving the agency, he served as a national program manager responsible for designing programs aimed at reducing pollution and improving energy efficiency and air quality.”
Of Haaland’s nomination, Taos Pueblo Gov. Edwin Concha told the Taos News Friday evening (Dec. 18), “It is a historical event to have a Native American run the very department that Native Americans rely on to get whatever services and direction that they need. That is the department that the Native Americans look to. It is a historic moment for a Native American to be appointed to that position.”
He also made note that Haaland’s gender is an important part of the message. “I think throughout Native America we need to understand, and I mean we ‘men’ in the Native American community, need to understand that Native American women are just as capable as the men are, and maybe even more so,” Concha said.
Haaland, whose father was a 30-year combat Marine awarded the Silver Star Medal during Vietnam and whose mother was in the Navy, served on the Armed Services Committee and is the Vice-Chair of Natural Resources Committees. Presently, she is chair of the House Natural Resources Subcommittee on National Parks, Forests and Public Lands.
She was chosen for the post over former Deputy Interior Secretary Michael Connor, an enrolled Taos Pueblo tribal member, and two U.S. senators from New Mexico: Tom Udall, who is retiring, and Martin Heinrich. Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham of New Mexico was offered the job but turned it down, according to The Hill.
Haaland’s appointment will leave a vacancy in the New Mexico Congressional delegation, something that makes fellow Democrats in the House nervous because they are holding a slim majority. However, according to the Santa Fe New Mexican, State Rep. Melanie Stansbury has said she wants to replace her in the U.S. House of Representatives.
Big job
Haaland earned a law degree from the University of New Mexico, a background helpful in wading through the mountain of laws and policies she would oversee if confirmed as Interior Secretary. Besides the BIA, the Interior Department manages national parks, the Bureau of Land Management and the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, in addition to dozens of other agencies regulating everything from energy and mineral development to invasive plant species. In all, the bureau employs 70,000 people. Plus, there is the rocky history Interior has had with Native people.
Contention ramped up during the Trump Administration as present Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke — bowing to the president’s desire to remove Indian trust lands so oil and gas interests might exploit them — told the National Tribal Energy Summit last May he saw a way to do just that. “If tribes would have a choice of leaving Indian trust lands and becoming a corporation, tribes would take it,” he said according to a Los Angeles Times report.
Like the 1950s Termination Policy, the government would broker a deal with tribes and pay them for their sovereign lands.
U.S. Rep. Deb Haaland (D-N.M.) greets people after speaking at the Roundhouse in 2019.
This kind of deal was offered the people of Taos Pueblo to end the near-60 year battle for their sacred Blue Lake, which was repudiated in 1970 when President Richard Nixon stated in no uncertain terms, “forced termination is wrong.” That year, he also signed legislation returning Blue Lake to the pueblo.
Add to this issues involving the Bears Ears sacred site, the Dakota Access Pipeline, a large copper mine slated for Arizona lands considered sacred by local Apaches, a uranium mine in South Dakota, along with other headline-making tales, and it’s easy to see why so many are pinning hopes for change on Biden’s pick.
“A voice like mine has never been a Cabinet secretary or at the head of the Department of Interior,” Haaland said after being named Biden’s pick. “I’m incredibly honored to accept Presidentelect Joe Biden’s nomination for Secretary of the Interior. As our country faces the impacts of climate change and environmental injustice, the Interior has a role and I will be a partner in addressing these challenges by protecting our public lands and moving our country towards a clean energy future.”
Choice lauded
No sooner had the news spread, Biden introduced her Saturday (Dec. 19) as part of his new climate team, “to address the existential threat of our time, climate change,” Biden said in a statement.
Biden’s choice was met with applause from politicos, celebrities and tribal leaders across the nation.
On Dec. 10, a group of 100 influential women issued a letter of support addressed to Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris, which read in part, “As Presidentelect Biden, you have said that you will be ‘an ally of the light not the darkness,’ and Vice President-elect Harris, you have said that Native Americans will always have a seat at the table, especially when it comes to Mother Earth because we are ‘the Original Peoples of this land who always knew that we have to protect Mother Earth, we have to be smart about it and we must take your lead.’ We believe it is critical at this time for the first Native American to serve in the President’s Cabinet, so we can begin to shift the focus back to caring for future generations and returning to a value system that honors Mother Earth. We believe that person is Congresswoman Deb Haaland.”
Taos Pueblo War Chief Gary J. Lujan, whose responsibilities include stewardship of his tribe’s lands and natural resources, echoed those sentiments in an email to the Taos News, saying, “The nomination of Congresswoman Debra Haaland to be Interior Secretary comes at a time where decisions to protect our environment, be it our forests, land and water should be the number one priority.”
Native American activist and executive director of Honor the Earth, Winona LaDuke told Democracy Now’s Amy Goodman in a Friday (Dec. 18) broadcast interview, “You know, that was a very, very important step for the Biden administration. You know, Indian people know how to take care of this land … There’s a lot of work to do to undo what the Trump administration has done. And we are really, really grateful that the Biden administration has taken these steps.”
Undoing the alleged damage the Trump Administration has done to Native America was also on the mind of Oren Lyons, 90, Faithkeeper of the Turtle Clan of the Seneca Nation of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy.
“I hope she will undo as much damage that was caused by the Trump Administration [and its] complete lack of concern for any kind of responsible relationship to the earth itself,” Lyons said. “The Trump Administration was just totally business-oriented, no concern for anything but money.”
Opposition
Not everyone supports Haaland’s appointment. Congressman Steve Pearce, who was recently named to chair the Republican Party of New Mexico, called out Haaland and the new administration’s “leftist agenda.”
In a press release, Pearce said, “Rep. Haaland has constantly voiced her opposition to fracking on federal lands. With her as Secretary, she will destroy New Mexico’s vital energy industry. Oil and gas is New Mexico’s bread and butter, providing billions in revenue … and more than 100,000 jobs. This doesn’t bode well for the energy industry as a whole.”
Oil and gas development infused $2.8 billion into New Mexico coffers during the 2020 fiscal year and marked its secondhighest total revenue ever reported despite a global price war and plummeting demand amid the coronavirus pandemic, according to a report released Monday (Dec. 21).
The Pearce release also included the accusation that “Haaland will eagerly follow Biden’s leftist agenda that includes a ban on fracking and stopping federal oil and gas leasing and permitting. If he continues on this path, he will virtually ruin our nation’s proud energy industry.”
In a Sunday (Dec. 20) tweet, Haaland said, “Let it be known: Our Interior Department will fight to address climate change and environmental injustice. We will empower communities who have shouldered the burdens of environmental negligence. And we will ensure that our decisions will once again be driven by science.”
She added, “This moment is profound when we consider the fact that a former secretary of the interior once proclaimed his goal to ‘civilize or exterminate [Native Americans].’ I am a living testament to the failure of that horrific ideology.”
Existential threat
Oren Lyons made note of Biden’s reference to the “existential threat” facing everyone on the planet. “We’re facing this crisis today, from human population to
greed and so forth, no regard for the future, no regard for, as we call, seven generations.”
The Seventh Generation Principle is based on a well-known Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) philosophy that the decisions we make today should result in a sustainable world seven generations into the future.
“I made a speech at the [United Nations] in 2000 on behalf of indigenous people,” Lyons said, “and I began that speech with the words, ‘The ice is melting.’ That was 20 years ago.”
He said he was asked again to address the UN General Assembly in 2014 on the issue of the environment. But, writing another speech on the same subject proved fruitless, especially since nothing had really changed, and, if anything, things were worse. So, he decided to give the same speech “word-for-word,” starting with, ‘The ice is melting.’”
He said it was received with people gravely shaking their heads in agreement. “I could see out there, everybody was nodding their head, so serious. I said at the end, well, I gave you this speech 14 years ago and the reason why I gave the same speech here again, is, the only thing that’s happened is things have gotten worse.”
“I think the most important point I can make here is we don’t have a lot of time to change course and direction. The powers that be have cut themselves too much slack. They don’t have all the time they think they have.”
Soon after Biden’s decision to appoint Haaland, retiring U.S. Senator Tom Udall (D-NM), who was also considered for the Interior post, said “I am confident that [Haaland] will be both a historic Interior Secretary and an excellent one. She will undo the damage of the Trump administration, restore the department’s workforce and expertise, uphold our obligations to Native communities and take the bold action needed to tackle the accelerating climate and nature crises … This is a watershed moment for Native communities, and for our nation.”