March 5, 2021
Democrat representative of New Mexico, Deb Haaland, President Joe Biden’s pick for Secretary of the Interior, began her confirmation hearing last week on Tuesday, Feb. 23 and completed it on Wednesday, Feb. 24. Conservative democrat of West Virginia, Senator Joe Manchin, is the deciding vote in Haaland’s confirmation, and he has expressed support for her appointment; if confirmed, she will be the first Native American to serve in a presidential cabinet.
Leaders in Native government are looking forward to her appointment. Kandi White, the Native Energy and Climate campaign director for the Indigenous Environmental Network, thinks it will be impactful to have a Native woman leading the Department of the Interior, as Haaland not only understands the government-to-government relations between Native people and the U.S. but also understands the disproportionate effect of climate change on Native communities (Rott, 2020). Overseeing the Department of the Interior “would place [Haaland] in charge of the Bureau of Indian Affairs and the Bureau of Indian Education, the agencies most involved in Native American issues and the ones that are most at loggerheads with tribes” (naturalresources.house.gov, 2020).