Deb Haaland makes history as first Native American Cabinet secretary after Senate confirmation
Clarification: Deb Haaland is the first Native American person to serve as a presidential Cabinet secretary.
WASHINGTON – The Senate has confirmed Deb Haaland to head the Interior Department, making her the first Native American to serve as a Cabinet secretary.
The vote was 51-40. All Democrats and a handful of Republicans voted to confirm her.
"Rep. Haaland's confirmation represents a gigantic step forward in creating a government that represents the full richness and diversity of this country, because Native Americans were, for far too long, neglected at the Cabinet level and in so many other places," Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said on the Senate floor before the vote Monday evening.
For more than 171 years, the federal agency responsible for managing the U.S. relationship with hundreds of recognized tribes has never had a Native American at its helm.
'We just made history': Native Americans praise historic choice to have Deb Haaland lead Interior
But some Republican lawmakers are unhappy with Haaland, not only over President Joe Biden's climate change agenda, which includes an oil and gas drilling pause on public lands, but her past statements calling for an end to natural gas fracking and pipeline development. The GOP is also upset about a tweet she sent in October saying "Republicans don’t believe in science."
Haaland, 60, is an enrolled citizen of the Pueblo of Laguna Native American tribe in New Mexico. She won reelection to a U.S. House seat in November but will be leaving Congress to take her position in Biden's Cabinet.
Now confirmed, she will lead an agency with more than 70,000 employees that is responsible for managing 480 million federal acres – nearly one-fifth the land area of the United States – as well as 2.5 billion acres of the Outer Continental Shelf. The department’s portfolio includes more than 400 national parks, 100 national monuments and about 500 national wildlife refuges.
The sprawling agency includes not only the Bureau of Indian Affairs and the Indian Health Service, but it also manages and administers 55 million acres of estates held in trust by the United States for hundreds of Native American tribes, including the Pueblo of Laguna.
Pressing issues such as land rights, health care and sacred site protections may not satisfy every tribe in a Biden administration, tribal leaders and other Native American advocates acknowledge. But they expressed a sense of hope that, with Haaland, they would have a key ally in the Cabinet, and that true give-and-take on hot-button issues might finally occur.
Environmental groups applauded the vote, too.
"Today is a historic day for all of us who care for our public lands and waters," said Theresa Pierno, president and CEO for the National Parks Conservation Association. "As a descendant of the original guardians of our lands, she brings a unique perspective, unlike any Interior secretary before her."
Last month, Haaland was questioned by Republicans during her confirmation hearing in the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, not only over the president's aggressive efforts to stop drilling on public lands but also her own public statements opposing fossil fuel extraction.
More: Vehement opposition to Deb Haaland ‘motivated by something other than her record’
In her hearing, Haaland downplayed some past statements, saying at one point that "it's President Biden's agenda I would move forward, not my own." Later, she acknowledged the interior secretary "serves all Americans, not just one small district in New Mexico."
Haaland also tried to deflect the criticism from several Republican senators over oil, gas and coal development, saying public lands could be used more for clean energy such as wind and solar. And she promised to help fossil fuel workers find new opportunities in an economy that will rely less on carbon-emitting industries.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Deb Haaland confirmed, becomes first Native American Cabinet secretary