WASHINGTON – With Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, announcing her intention to confirm Rep. Deb Haaland, it seems almost certain that the United States will have its first Native American Interior secretary and Cabinet member.
If Haaland’s potential leadership over a department that played a central role in the federal government’s abusive relationship with Native Americans isn’t groundbreaking enough, she will also be the biggest climate change advocate to ever assume the role of Interior secretary.
With President Joe Biden signing an executive order to temporarily halt new oil and gas leases on public lands, Haaland will immediately have a central role in achieving the president’s climate change goals, and absorbing the resulting Republican criticism.
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