Biden's Pick for Secretary of the Interior

Rep. Debra Haaland  - via Wikimedia

President-elect Joe Biden has chosen Representative Deb Haaland, a first-term congressperson from New Mexico, to be his secretary of the interior. If confirmed by the Senate, Haaland will be the first Native American to run the Department of the Interior and the first to serve on a presidential cabinet. 

The position oversees agencies like the Bureau of Land Management and National Park Service and the Bureau of Indian Affairs. 

Haaland, 60, is the daughter of two military veterans. Her mother, a Native American, served in the U.S. Navy. Her father, a Norwegian American, was a Marine and received a Silver Star for courageous service in the Vietnam War. Haaland is an enrolled member of the Laguna Pueblo and describes herself as a 35th generation New Mexican. 

It is always dangerous to predict what a cabinet member will want to do or be able to do but some environmental groups have already commented on the nomination. The National Wildlife Federation stated that choosing Haaland for the position is “a clear sign the new administration is deeply committed to tackling America’s wildlife and climate crises and authentically engaging with Native American Tribes and Indigenous communities.” 

President-elect Biden pledged to halt all new oil and gas drilling on public lands and waters.

Haaland earned a Juris Doctor degree from the University of New Mexico School of Law and went on to serve as tribal administrator for the San Felipe Pueblo.

She joined the Dakota Access Pipeline protests on the Standing Rock Sioux reservation. 

She and Sharice Davids of Kansas were both elected in 2018 making them the first Native American women in Congress. Haaland serves as vice-chair of the House Natural Resources Committee and is also chair of the Subcommittee on National Parks, Forests, and Public Lands. 

Much attention has been focused on what she might bring to Native American affairs.  During the Trump administration, DOI Secretaries Ryan Zinke and Bernhardt, pushed through the Dakota Access Pipeline, removed protections from sacred tribal sites in Utah’s Bears Ears National Monument, opened the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge to oil drilling (threatening food sources for the Gwich’in people), and reorganized the DOI in ways that Haaland argues are intended to suppress the voice of tribes.