WASHINGTON, D.C. — Today, in a bipartisan vote of 51-40, the Senate confirmed second-term Congresswoman Deb Haaland as the first Native American to serve as a U.S. Cabinet member in the history of the United States. She has been appointed to lead the Department of the Interior which manages over one million acres of federal lands across the Central Coast.
Secretary Haaland, an enrolled member of the Pueblo of Laguna, will guide a staff of 70,000 employees in managing national monuments like the Carrizo Plain and Bears Ears and national parks like Channel Islands and Yosemite, regulating oil drilling on public lands like the Los Padres National Forest, protecting habitat across national wildlife refuges like Hopper Mountain (Ventura County) and the Guadalupe-Nipomo Dunes, and safeguarding endangered species including the California condor. She will lead the department charged with fulfilling trust responsibilities and support for Indigenous peoples, Tribal Nations, Native Hawaiians, and Native Alaskans across the country including the maintenance of government-to-government relationships.
“Indigenous people have traditionally been good stewards of the land,” said Mariza Sullivan, Chair of the Coastal Band of the Chumash Nation. “And for this nation to finally have such a highly qualified Native American woman as we will with the Honorable Deb Haaland as our Secretary of Interior, our shared land will finally be in the hands of someone who values and cherishes it as much as we do.”
As a former chair of the House Subcommittee on National Parks, Forests, and Public Lands, Representative Haaland championed bold action on climate, environmental justice, and the protection of public land and wildlife. She is expected to lead the agency in addressing climate change, mass extinction, environmental injustice, and harm to Indigenous peoples inflicted by the department over the nation’s history.
“Secretary Haaland understands the need to stop unsustainable resource extraction, prioritize the protection of water resources and the nation’s fragile ecosystems, and preserve biodiversity to provide a livable future for the generations that follow ours,” said Los Padres ForestWatch director of advocacy Rebecca August. “She can provide the strong direction and guidance needed to confront the department’s long and terrible history of exclusion and harm to Native Americans. We can’t imagine a better suited leader for this moment in our nation’s history.”
Secretary Haaland will help implement President Biden’s executive order to protect 30% of the nation’s lands by the year 2030 and to align the federal government’s oil and gas leasing program with climate and environmental justice objectives. She will oversee review the Bureau of Land Management’s plan that opened 1.2 million acres of public lands and mineral estate across the Central Coast to new oil drilling and fracking last year. The plan is currently under litigation in a suit filed by ForestWatch, the State of California, and other environmental and social justice organizations. Proposed and approved oil drilling in the Los Padres National Forest and Carrizo Plain National Monument will also now fall under her direction.
“ForestWatch celebrates this historic moment. Secretary Haaland is the bold and visionary leader this moment demands,” said Los Padres ForestWatch executive director Jeff Kuyper. “ We look forward to working with Secretary Haaland to improve public lands throughout the Central Coast region as she gives Native people throughout the country a voice in this administration.”
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