Nomination of Debra Anne Haaland

Floor Speech

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Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, one floor above this Senate Chamber, near a bank of elevators, sit the marble busts of two leaders of the Ojibwa, or Chippewa, people who came to Washington, DC, in 1855 to sign a treaty with the U.S.Government.

The terms of the treaty had been dictated by the U.S. Government: The Ojibwa people would surrender more than 2 million acres of their ancestral homeland in northern Minnesota. In exchange, the Tribes would receive less than $20,000 in cash, goods, and services, and assistance to resettle on two reservations.

There was no real negotiation. The Ojibwa has two choices: Accept the terms, or face annihilation. So the two chiefs, whose English names were Buffalo and Flat Mouth, signed the treaty and hoped that they had salvaged some future for their people.

It was one of more than 500 treaties that Indian nations signed with the U.S. Government between 1778 and 1871.

Like every one of those 500-plus treaties, the 1855 treaty with the Ojibwa Nation was violated by the U.S. Government.

The part of our government most responsible for carrying out treaty obligations and maintaining government-to-government relations with Tribal nations was--and still is--the U.S. Department of the Interior. That is part of what makes the vote we will take today so historic and important.

It has taken too long--244 years--for a Native American to be included in a President's Cabinet.

Deb Halland is a leader of honor, integrity and vision, and I commend President Biden for nominating her to this important post. As Secretary of the Interior, she will oversee the department that manages America's national parks and vast public lands. She also will lead the Bureau primarily responsible for maintaining relations between the U.S Government and the nearly 600 federally recognized, sovereign Tribes within our national borders.

Her nomination has the strong backing of more than 500 national and regional Tribal leaders, civil rights organizations, and environmental and conservation groups. She received bipartisan support in the Senate Committee on Environment and Natural Resources.

She is a thoughtful and inclusive leader who will search for balanced solutions on energy, climate, and natural resource policy. I also hope--and expect--that she will correct mistakes the previous administration made in removing protections for vast amounts of lands, including large portions of Bears Ears and the Grand Staircase- Escalante National Monuments in Utah. These natural and cultural treasures are part of our shared national inheritance and must be protected. Deb Haaland understands that.

In 2018, she became one of the first two indigenous women ever elected to Congress. She is a 35th-generation New Mexican and an enrolled member of the Laguna Pueblo, a Tribe of people who have lived on the land that is now New Mexico for 900 years.

Defending this Nation is in her blood. Her father was a marine who received the Silver Star for his service in Vietnam and is buried in Arlington National Cemetery. Her mother is a Navy veteran who worked for a quarter century at the Bureau of Indian Education, an Interior Department Agency.

This historic nomination is an important step towards healing a deep wound of our past, and it offers hope for a better future.

I am honored to support Deb Haaland to serve as U.S. Secretary of the Interior.

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