Joe Biden unveils climate team, first Native American cabinet member
- Joe Biden unveils team ‘ready on day one’ to fight climate change
- Deb Haaland would be the first indigenous cabinet secretary
US President-elect Joe Biden tapped North Carolina’s top environmental regulator, Michael Regan, as US Environmental Protection Agency chief and Democratic congresswoman Deb Haaland as interior secretary as he builds his team to combat climate change and safeguard the environment.
If confirmed by the Senate, Regan would become the first black person to run the EPA and Haaland would become the first Native American cabinet secretary, adding to a historically diverse incoming Democratic administration.
Their nominations were announced by Biden’s transition team in a statement on Thursday.
Also on Thursday, a top Biden adviser, congressman Cedric Richmond, tested positive for the coronavirus after briefly interacting with Biden earlier this week when the president-elect was campaigning on behalf of Democratic US Senate candidates in Georgia.
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Their encounter was in open air and both men were wearing masks, the transition team said, meaning Biden was not in “close contact” as defined by the US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention. Biden tested negative for Covid-19 on Thursday. Richmond will quarantine for two weeks.
Biden as well participated on Thursday in an interview on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert where he defended his son, Hunter, who is under investigation by federal prosecutors over his taxes.
“We have great confidence in our son. I’m not concerned about any accusations been made against him. It’s used to get to me. I think it’s kind of foul play,” Biden told Colbert.
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The probe into Hunter Biden’s taxes are related to his business activities in China and elsewhere that some Republicans in Congress say merit the appointment by the Justice Department of a special counsel.
Regan and Haaland are among the key officials, also including the secretaries of energy and transportation and the head of a new office leading domestic climate policy coordination at the White House, in Biden’s bid to make US policy greener after four years of Republican Donald Trump’s presidency.
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“This brilliant, tested, trailblazing team will be ready on day one to confront the existential threat of climate change with a unified national response rooted in science and equity,” Biden said in a statement.
Biden plans to pursue a goal of moving the United States to net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 – a once-unimaginable task that would require the world’s second-largest emitter to overhaul major parts of its economy, from cars, trucks and planes to power plants, farms and buildings.
Biden’s focus on climate marks a sharp change from Trump’s administration, which had Washington exit the Paris climate accord and work to soften or dismantle climate regulations the administration deemed harmful to the economy.
The Interior Department employs more than 70,000 people across the United States and oversees more than 20 per cent of the nation’s surface, including national parks like Yellowstone and Yosemite. Haaland has said she would seek to expand renewable energy production on federal land to fight climate change, and undo Trump’s focus on bolstering fossil fuels output.
Her nomination comes on the back of a wave of support from leading Democrats, Hollywood celebrities, environmentalists and tribal leaders.
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“We believe it is critical at this time for the first Native American to serve in the president’s cabinet, so we can begin to shift the focus back … to a value system that honours Mother Earth,” entertainment stars Cher and Jane Fonda wrote in an open letter co-signed by female Native American chiefs and business leaders last week.
“We believe that person is Congresswoman Deb Haaland.”
The single mother overcame alcoholism, poverty and prejudice to become one of the United States’ first Native American congresswomen.
Haaland, 60, who hails from New Mexico’s Laguna Pueblo tribe and once started a company that made salsa dip to support herself and her young daughter as she struggled through law school, has just won re-election to a second term in Congress from the southwestern US state.
The Biden transition team called Haaland “a barrier-breaking public servant who has spent her career fighting for families, including in Tribal Nations, rural communities, and communities of colour”.
Additional reporting by Agence France-Presse and Bloomberg
