Tester Votes to Confirm Congresswoman Deb Haaland as Interior Secretary

U.S. Senator Jon Tester today voted to confirm Congresswoman Deb Haaland to be the next Secretary of the Interior:

“Secretary Haaland has demonstrated a strong commitment to protecting Montana’s public lands, creating good paying jobs, upgrading aging water infrastructure in rural America, and ensuring the federal government meets its trust and treaty responsibilities to Tribal nations. Make no mistake, the folks who work in the extractive resource industries are essential to Montana’s economy and I will continue to defend these jobs from burdensome regulations. But while we don’t agree on everything, Secretary Haaland has shown herself to be well qualified to lead the Interior Department, and I look forward to working with her to safeguard our public lands and bolster our economy.”

During their meeting in January, Senator Tester asked Secretary Haaland about her positions on key public lands issues, and asked her to work with him to roll back former Interior Secretary David Bernhardt’s efforts to cripple implementation of the Land and Water Conservation Fund. They also discussed Tester’s ongoing effort to pass and implement Tribal water compacts, and swiftly implementing Savanna’s Act and the Not Invisible Act to address the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Persons (MMIP) crisis.

Secretary Haaland is the first Native American cabinet secretary in U.S. history.