Statement: Haaland Will Set New Course for Interior Dept.
WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today the U.S. Senate confirmed Deb Haaland as secretary of the Department of the Interior. Robert Weissman, president of Public Citizen, released the following statement:
“After four years of ransacking by the oil and gas industry cronies who ran the agency during the Trump administration, Deb Haaland’s historic confirmation as the country’s first Native American cabinet secretary will set a new course for the agency and its all-important management of public lands.
“With Haaland in charge, tribes and local communities will finally have a voice in important decisions related to our public lands, which will no longer be dominated by the fossil fuel and mining industries that have been allowed to pillage our environment at bargain prices.
“This is a day that should make all Americans hopeful – hopeful that we can begin to repair historic injustices against Native Americans, hopeful that we can better steward our very own public lands, hopeful that we can avert the worst of catastrophic climate change.”