CrimsonPhantom
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Deb Haaland Sec.Of Interior Nominee
Quote:The New Mexico House Democrat that President Biden has picked to lead the Department of the Interior will be -- if confirmed -- the first Native American Cabinet secretary, but her views on the hot-button issue of fracking have been met with resistance from conservatives.
Rep. Deb Haaland was announced in December as Biden’s choice to fill the position that oversees U.S. natural resources and tribal lands. The 60-year-old was first elected to Congress in the 2018 midterms and now says she is "honored and ready to serve" as America’s Secretary of the Interior.
"A voice like mine has never been a Cabinet secretary or at the head of the Department of Interior," Haaland tweeted. "Growing up in my mother’s Pueblo household made me fierce. I’ll be fierce for all of us, our planet, and all of our protected land."
Biden’s historic pick of Haaland -- a co-sponsor of the Green New Deal -- has been hailed by fellow climate advocates like Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y.
Yet Haaland has repeatedly called for an all-out ban on fracking, rhetoric that has conservatives concerned despite Biden’s claims on the campaign trail that he does not intend to completely end the controversial method of extracting oil and gas.
Haaland told The Guardian in a 2019 interview that she was "wholeheartedly against fracking and drilling on public lands" -- a sentiment shared by Biden’s proposed plan for a "clean energy revolution."
In 2018, she tweeted that "as a Native American woman whose ancestral homeland is under attack from the Fossil Fuel Industry: I 100% support a Green New Deal and a Congressional Climate Commission."
The Republican Party of New Mexico, following Haaland’s nomination in December, said "it’s hard to see a bright spot for our state because of her extreme position on energy."
Republican Party of New Mexico Chairman Steve Pearce also expressed concerns and said Biden’s pick to lead the Department of the Interior "doesn’t bode well for the energy industry as a whole."
"Oil and gas is New Mexico’s bread and butter, providing billions in revenue, more than 40% of our state’s budget and more than 100,000 jobs," Pearce said in a statement.
But Haaland stated in an interview with The Washington Post last year that New Mexico is a "big gas and oil state" and that "I care about every single job."
"We don’t want to go back to normal, right?" she added. "We don’t want to go back to where we were because that economy wasn’t working for a lot of people."
Haaland has the National Park Foundation (NPF) among her supporters.
"We are confident that national parks and public lands will be in good hands under her leadership," the NPF has said in a statement to Fox News. "Representative Haaland recognizes the value and importance of the more than 400 natural, cultural, and historical parks that reflect all of our stories."
Haaland has also come out in favor of abolishing the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency.
"The violence and terror ICE promotes must stop, and we need to hold this out-of-control agency accountable," she wrote in a 2018 email to Fox News.
That same year, she voiced opposition to former President Trump’s pick of Brett Kavanaugh as Supreme Court Justice.
"I believe Dr. Christine Blasey Ford, and as a result I believe we need to do everything we can to stop Brett Kavanaugh from reaching the Supreme Court," Haaland tweeted. "Women deserve better than this."
Prior to arriving in Washington, D.C., and becoming one of the first Native American women to serve in Congress, Haaland served as the chairwoman of the Democratic Party of New Mexico.
"During her time as State Party Chair, she traveled to Standing Rock to stand side-by-side with the community to protect tribal sovereignty and advocate vital natural resources," a biography on her Congressional website reads.
Haaland grew up in a military family and attended 13 different public schools throughout her childhood as her father -- a 30-year combat Marine awarded the Silver Star Medal -- moved around the country, it adds.
"Like many New Mexicans, she had to rely on food stamps at times as a single parent, has lived paycheck-to-paycheck, and struggled to put herself through college," the biography also reads.
Haaland has earned degrees from the University of New Mexico and its Law School.
On Capitol Hill, Haaland currently serves as the vice-chair of the House Committee on Natural Resources and sponsored a bill signed by Trump that "contains provisions to create 273,000 acres of wilderness in New Mexico."
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Quote:President Joe Biden’s nominee for secretary of the interior, who if confirmed will carry out his moratorium on new drilling on public lands, once led a company that profited from the generation of fossil fuels.
The nominee, New Mexico Democratic Rep. Deb Haaland, was a co-sponsor of the Green New Deal in 2019 and pledged to vote against all new fossil fuel infrastructure before her nomination. Before her election to the House in 2018, Haaland served on the board of the Laguna Development Corporation (LDC) from 2010-2015, an organization owned by the Laguna Pueblo Native American tribe that operates a number of casinos, gas stations and other businesses.
Among the LDC’s business portfolio is a transmix plant, which produces a fossil fuel product made out of a “mix of gasoline, diesel, and jet fuel created during transportation of such fuels through a shared pipeline,” according to its website. The LDC says its transmix plant “operates 24 hours a day and produces approximately 50,000 gallons per day” and then sells the product at the company’s gas stations and convenience stores.
The LDC’s transmix plant was in operation before Haaland joined the company’s board in 2010 and is still operating today, according to its website.
Haaland was appointed as the first chairwoman of the LDC during her time with the organization. She states on her campaign website that she used her leadership position at the company to enact “policies and commitments to earth-friendly business practices.”
Haaland worked with the LDC up until she began her first term in Congress in 2019. Her 2018 financial disclosure filed with the House of Representatives reveals she earned $30,550 as an independent contractor for the LDC that year.
Haaland’s partner, Lloyd “Skip” Sayre, currently serves as the corporate director for sales and marketing at the LDC. Haaland disclosed Sayre as her partner in a disclosure form filed with the House Ethics Committee in November 2019.
Haaland’s office did not return multiple requests for comment.
Despite Haaland’s history leading an organization that profits from the generation of fossil fuels, she’s now virulently anti-fossil fuel. She was a co-sponsor of the Green New Deal in 2019, saying it was necessary as her “ancestral homeland is under attack from the Fossil Fuel Industry.”
She also pledged to vote against any new fossil fuel infrastructure before she was nominated to serve as Biden’s interior secretary. If confirmed, Haaland would become the first Native American interior secretary and will oversee Biden’s moratorium on the sale of new drilling rights on federal lands.
“Fracking is a danger to the air we breathe and the water we drink, Haaland wrote in 2017,” according to The Wall Street Journal. “The auctioning off of our land for fracking and drilling serves only to drive profits to the few.”
Some Republican senators have pledged to oppose Haaland’s nomination, saying her opposition to fossil fuels is disqualifying.
Montana Republican Sen. Steve Daines said in February he would block Haaland’s nomination.
“I’m deeply concerned with the Congresswoman’s support on several radical issues that will hurt Montana, our way of life, our jobs and rural America, including her support for the Green New Deal and President Biden’s oil and gas moratorium, as well as her opposition to the Keystone XL pipeline,” Daines said. “I’m not convinced the Congresswoman can divorce her radical views and represent what’s best for Montana and all stakeholders in the West.
Haaland’s nomination has also drawn opposition from Republican members of the House, according to The Washington Post. Fifteen GOP representatives called on Biden to revoke her nomination, calling her a “direct threat to working men and women” because of her support for the Green New Deal.
Biden’s drilling moratorium received immediate pushback from an oil-producing Native American tribe in Utah in late January.
“The Ute Indian Tribe and other energy producing tribes rely on energy development to fund our governments and provide services to our members,” the chairman of the Ute Indian Tribe Business Committee wrote to acting Interior Secretary Scott de la Vega on Jan. 22.
The Interior Department exempted Native American tribes from Biden’s moratorium after receiving the Ute tribe’s letter.
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Quote:President-elect Joe Biden announced he will nominate a New Mexico Democrat who smeared students from Covington Catholic High School last year to lead the Department of the Interior.
Rep. Deb Haaland (D., N.M.), a freshman congresswoman and one of two Native-American women in Congress, accused the high school students of "hate" and "intolerance" in January 2019 after a selectively edited video clip of an encounter between pro-life student activists and counterprotesters in Washington, D.C., went viral.
"This Veteran put his life on the line for our country," Haaland said of Nathan Phillips, a Native-American activist who confronted the Covington Catholic students. "The students' display of blatant hate, disrespect, and intolerance is a signal of how common decency has decayed under this administration."
Haaland followed up her accusations with a second tweet, saying, "A Native American Vietnam War veteran was seen being harassed and mocked by a group of MAGA hat-wearing teens."
Media reports at the time portrayed the group of high school students as harassing Phillips. Additional reports revealed, however, that Phillips approached the group of Covington Catholic students, placing himself in between the students and a group of radical Black Hebrew Israelites, who were yelling racial slurs and other insults at the students. Phillips later told media outlets that he stepped in to defend the Black Hebrew Israelites.
Also, after several media outlets referred to Phillips as a Vietnam War veteran, MilitaryTimes reported that Phillips did not serve in Vietnam.
The Biden transition team did not respond to a request for comment.
Attorneys for the families of Covington students later sued Haaland, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D., Mass.), CNN, and the Washington Post for defamation for their role in spreading false information about the controversy. "None of [the victims] harassed or mocked anyone, and particularly no Native American ‘war veterans,'" the students' attorneys said.
Though a judge dismissed the defamation suits against Warren and Haaland, Covington Catholic student Nick Sandmann settled out of court with both CNN and the Washington Post.
Haaland did not respond to a request for comment.
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