Deb Haaland Speaks About Climate Change at Final Night of DNC

By Dan Boyd, Albuquerque Journal

Published on August 22, 2024

U.S. Interior Secretary Deb Haaland focused on her family’s generational ties to New Mexico and the nation’s climate future in a prime-time speech Thursday at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago. Haaland, a former New Mexico congresswoman, blasted Republican Donald Trump for his record on environmental issues during her four-minute speech.

“While fishing with my dad and running through the desert with my cousins, I learned that we have a responsibility to take care of our planet,” Haaland said. “Donald Trump never learned that lesson.”

Haaland made history in 2021 when she was confirmed as the nation’s first-ever Native American Cabinet secretary.

Her remarks in Chicago made her the second New Mexican to deliver a prime-time speech at this year’s DNC, as Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham spoke about health care issues on Tuesday.

As interior secretary, Haaland launched an investigation into past federal Indian boarding schools that found at least 973 Native American, Alaska Native or Native Hawaiians died while attending such schools.

She also issued an order last year withdrawing federal lands within a 10-mile radius of New Mexico’s Chaco Canyon from new oil and natural gas leasing for the next 20 years.

But oil production in the United States has steadily increased over the last three years, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, due in large part to a production boom in the Permian Basin.

During her speech, Haaland cited Trump’s past descriptions of climate change as a hoax and said the former president sought to make it easier for companies to pollute the air and water by rolling back environmental rules.

In contrast, she said Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris had held polluters accountable as California’s attorney general.

She also cited Harris’ decisive vote in favor of the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act, which included funding for electric vehicle tax credits.

“Let me go back to the lesson I learned in the desert Southwest: we all have a role in protecting our earth for future generations,” said Haaland, who opened her remarks speaking in her Laguna Pueblo language, also known as Keres.

Haaland, who is a former San Felipe Pueblo tribal administrator, is a past chairwoman of the New Mexico Democratic Party. She was elected to represent an Albuquerque-based congressional district in 2018, before then President-elect Joe Biden appointed her interior secretary at the end of 2020.

It is unclear whether Haaland might stay on at the helm of the U.S. Department of the Interior if Harris wins this year’s presidential election.