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Interior Secretary Deb Haaland announced plans for a task force to work on finding replacement names for places using offensive terms including "squaw".
The U.S. Senate confirmed Haaland for Secretary of the Interior in a 51-40 vote.
Sen. Steve Daines voted to block her confirmation, citing her track record and ideology, and Sen. Jon Tester voted to confirm her, citing her commitments to public lands, tribal nations and job creation.
A Democratic representative from New Mexico, Haaland is a member of the Laguna Pueblo Tribe. She is a 35th generation New Mexican.
In her two-day confirmation hearing, Haaland spoke of her father, who served in the Marine Corps, her mother, who served in the Navy and worked for the Bureau of Indian Education, and generations of ancestors who paved her path.
March 15, 2021 6:21 p.m.
The Senate confirmed Rep. Deb Haaland (D-NM) in a 51-40 vote on Monday as the U.S. interior secretary, a historic feat marking Haaland as the first Native American to serve as a Cabinet secretary and to lead the federal agency that holds large influence over the country’s tribes.
Haaland, who is one of the first two Native American women elected to the House, is viewed as a critical player behind President Biden’s clean energy agenda that aims for a 50% reduction of the country’s carbon footprint by 2035. Serving as the vice chair of the House Committee for Natural Resources, Haaland faced a showdown vote in the Senate this month amid Republican concern for her past remarks voicing her opposition to oil and gas drilling.