FOE applauds confirmation of Deb Haaland as Secretary of the Interior
WASHINGTON– The U.S. Senate voted to confirm Deb Haaland as Secretary of the Interior today. She will be sworn-in in the coming days, following an unusually hostile senate hearing.
Friends of the Earth Fossil Fuels Program Manager Nicole Ghio issued the following response:
Friends of the Earth congratulates Deb Haaland on her Senate confirmation as Secretary of the Interior. As a champion of our public lands and waters and the communities that rely on them, Haaland is best suited to rebuild the Department of the Interior.
The hostile hearing and hypocritically harsh treatment Haaland received from fossil fuel-friendly Senators says a lot about pervasive racism in our political systems and society. That several of those same Senators happily supported Trump’s unapologetically racist Bureau of Land Management nominee William Perry Pendley is shameful but unsurprising.
A member of the Laguna Pueblo in New Mexico, Haaland will be the first Native person to lead the DOI. We hope through Haaland’s leadership the new administration will keep its promise to advance policies and practices that are aligned with environmental justice principles. We look forward to working with Haaland to overturn the Trump Administration’s efforts to turn our shared wild places over to extractive industries.
Expert contact: Nicole Ghio, [email protected]
Communications contact: Aisha Dukule, (202) 893-3502