{"id":8026,"date":"2021-02-22T12:16:56","date_gmt":"2021-02-22T17:16:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.indianz.com\/News\/?p=8026"},"modified":"2021-02-22T12:32:05","modified_gmt":"2021-02-22T17:32:05","slug":"indigenously-deb-haaland-set-for-historic-confirmation-hearing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/indianz.com\/News\/2021\/02\/22\/indigenously-deb-haaland-set-for-historic-confirmation-hearing\/","title":{"rendered":"Indigenously: Deb Haaland set for historic confirmation hearing"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Enjoy the videos and music you love, upload original content, and share it all with friends, family, and the world on YouTube.<\/p>\n\t\t<\/a>\n\t<\/div>\n\t

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Bloomberg Quicktake: Deb Haaland Will be the First Native American Interior Secretary<\/a>\r\n<\/figcaption>\r\n
Historic Hearing Set for Haaland<\/div>\r\n
The confirmation hearing for Interior Secretary nominee Rep. Deb Haaland is scheduled for Tuesday, February 23 at 9:30 a.m. ET<\/div>\r\n
Monday, February 22, 2021<\/div>\r\n
By Jenni Monet<\/div>\r\n
Indigenously<\/div>\r\n
indigenously.org<\/a><\/div>\r\n

<\/P>\r\nThis story is a project of the Indigenously newsletter. Subscribe today<\/a>.<\/EM><\/strong>\r\n

<\/p>\r\nA date has been set for the much-anticipated confirmation hearing of Interior Secretary nominee<\/a>, Rep. Deb Haaland of New Mexico, a tribal citizen of the Laguna Pueblo.

<\/P>\r\nThe historic hearing will take place on Tuesday, February 23, at 9:30 AM ET before the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee<\/a> \u2014 the first time a Native American will be considered for a cabinet position by the Senate. If confirmed, Haaland will make history again in becoming the first Native American Cabinet secretary in our 243-year history as a nation.

<\/P>\r\nHaaland\u2019s confirmation hearing is part of a flurry of hearings stalled by the second impeachment trial of former President Donald Trump. According to CNN\u2019s Cabinet Tracker<\/a>, only seven of Biden\u2019s Cabinet-level nominees requiring Senate approval have been confirmed.

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Rep. Deb Haaland (D-New Mexico), center, stands among Native women leaders and members of Congress at the U.S. Capitol on September 11, 2019. Photo by Indianz.Com (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0)<\/a>\r\n<\/figcaption>\r\n<\/figure>

<\/p>\r\nThe announcement comes as opposition against Haaland\u2019s nomination has been building among Republican lawmakers critical of her stance on energy affairs.

<\/P>\r\nThe most recent of her critics has been Sen. Steve Daines and Rep. Matt Rosendale of Montana. In January, Rosendale joined 14 Republican members of Congress in signing a letter to Biden urging him to withdraw his nomination<\/a> of Haaland, calling her \u201ca direct threat to working men and women and a rejection of responsible development of America\u2019s natural resources.\u201d

<\/P>\r\nIn early February, Daines released a statement after meeting with Haaland saying that he is \u201cdeeply concerned with the Congresswoman\u2019s support on several radical issues\u201d and threatened to block her confirmation. His most recent attack came hours before her hearing date had been announced, Tuesday, in spreading misinformation over the failure of Texas\u2019 power grid<\/a> in the face of a record winter freeze.\r\n

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My statement after meeting with @JoeBiden\u2019s nominee to head @Interior.<\/p>\n\t\t<\/a>\n\t<\/div>\n\t

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<\/P>\r\nHaaland was a co-sponsor of the Green New Deal in 2019 and has been vocal in opposing fracking on public lands, including her ancestral homelands near Chaco Canyon in New Mexico. In the lead-up to her historic campaign victory in 2018 \u2014 one of the first two Native American women ever elected to Congress \u2014 Haaland joined thousands of other Indigenous Water Protectors and their allies at Standing Rock to protest the Dakota Access Pipeline. \r\n

<\/p>\r\n\u201cI went to Standing Rock because I believe the health of our earth and environment are the most important factors for the future of our children,\u201d Haaland wrote on her blog<\/a> about her campaign commitment to address climate change.

<\/P>\r\nMany across Indian Country regard the second-term congresswoman as \u201cAuntie Deb<\/a>,\u201d a term of endearment emblematic of what she and her historic appointment represent: a connected and caring voice reflecting the resilience and resistance of a People faced with centuries of broken promises, direct genocide, persistent neglect, and abuse. Her nomination to lead the Department of Interior, an agency that has historically worked to marginalize Native Americans and usurp Indigenous lands is also deeply symbolic.

<\/P>\r\nHaaland\u2019s storied struggle \u2014a single-mom who\u2019s faced food insecurity and homelessness all while earning a law degree of which she is still paying off student loans \u2014 is perhaps why an alliance of progressives activists, many of them Indigenous, relentlessly campaigned to elevate Haaland, over another Native American being considered for the Cabinet post. Micheal Connor, a career Interior bureaucrat of Taos Pueblo was also being considered by the Biden-Harris Transition Team, but he was quickly discounted over suspicions of seeming too \u201ccorporate.\u201d<\/a>

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