Joe Manchin Will Vote to Confirm Far-Left Deb Haaland for Interior Secretary

Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) announced he would vote to confirm Rep. Deb Haaland (D-NM) to lead the Department of the Interior (DOI), joining the green-spree Democrats in their “radical” agenda against fossil fuel production in the United States.

President Joe Biden’s pick to head the agency in charge of millions of acres of federal land and its energy infrastructure is hostile to the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL) project, which transports over 500,000 barrels per day.

Haaland’s Congressional website features an essay titled “Fierce” about her participation in protesting the installation of the project, which lasted for weeks until winter weather set in.

In 2016, Debra Haaland cooked green chili and tortillas at the Standing Rock Sioux camps pitched against the Dakota Access Pipeline. Bringing food was her traditional way of contributing to the fight against the $3.8 billion pipeline.

She stayed in the camps for four days that September, but the environmental cause she came to support has resounded not only within her, but around the world.

“I first saw it on Facebook, but more and more people were coming out here from New Mexico and posting their experiences on Facebook and I just realized that I should come,” Haaland said. She is now one of the first female Native Representatives for New Mexico.

Sen. John Hoeven (R-ND) questioned Haaland in her nomination hearing if she, upon confirmation, would recuse herself from any decision regarding the pipeline to avoid any conflict of interest.

Haaland did not answer directly but said that she would leave that decision to people at the agency who cover legal issues.

Biden’s war on domestic fossil fuel production has led North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum to lobby the administration not to disrupt the Dakota Access Pipeline’s operation so as to preserve jobs and investments.

“In a letter sent earlier this week, Burgum asked the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers not to shutter the pipeline after a federal judge last month ruled that it is running without a key permit at its Lake Oahe Crossing near the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation,” the North Dakota-based Inforum website reported.

Experts say that the pipeline shutdown also could have a negative impact on food prices.

Stopping this energy resource will “hit the American people directly in the pocketbook,” Frank Macchiarola, senior vice president of policy, economics, and regulatory affairs at the American Petroleum Institute, said in a Fox News report.