US Senate confirms Deb Haaland as Interior Secu

Washington, March 16 : The US Senate has voted to confirm Deb Haaland, a Democratic Congresswoman from New Mexico, to serve as the first Native American Interior Secretary and thus oversee the country’s vast natural resources including tribal lands.
The confirmation vote on Monday was 51-40, with four Republican Senators crossing the party line to vote yes with all the Democratic Senators in attendance, reports Xinhua news agency.
Nine senators missed the vote.
The vote makes Haaland the first Native American to head a cabinet agency, who will assume office on Wednesday.
President Joe Biden’s nomination for Haaland, a member of the Laguna Pueblo in New Mexico, to run the Department of the Interior, won applause from progressive Democrats because of her opposition to a controversial fossil fuel extraction method known as fracking, as well as her support for the Green New Deal, a bold clean energy initiative championed by the progressives.
To assuage her critics’ concerns, Haaland said during her confirmation hearing that energy from fossil fuels “does and will continue to play a major role in America for years to come,” meanwhile stressing the need to find a “balance” between fossil fuels and fighting climate change.