Free Republic

administration has produced a clownish energy policy. It is simultaneously suppressing petroleum production in the U.S. and begging Saudi Arabia and Russia to produce more. This is idiotic, but Jennifer Granholm apparently thinks it’s funny. You might think the administration’s energy policies couldn’t possibly get worse. But now the New York Times reports: “Biden Administration Plans Wind Farms Along Nearly the Entire U.S. Coastline.” The Biden administration announced on Wednesday a plan to develop large-scale wind farms along nearly the entire coastline of the United States, the first long-term strategy from the government to produce electricity from offshore turbines. Speaking...

President Biden and a third of his Cabinet will be at the United Nations Climate Change conference in Scotland that starts Sunday, a high-profile show of force amid pressing domestic issues. Attendees at the conference include Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, National Economic Council Director Brian Deese, Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm, Interior Secretary Deb Haaland, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, USAID Administrator Samantha Power, NOAA Administrator Rick Spinrad, White House Office of Science and Technology Policy Director Eric Lander, and EPA Administrator Michael Regan. Biden climate advisers John Kerry and Gina McCarthy will...

The Biden administration is delaying lease sales of federal lands for oil and gas exploration even after a court order, the head of the Western Energy Alliance said. President Joe Biden banned oil and gas lease sales by directing the U.S. Department of the Interior to pause new oil and natural gas leasing on public lands and offshore waters. It did not impact existing operations or permits for valid, existing leases, the agency said. After 13 states filed suit in federal court in Louisiana against the federal government over the ban, U.S. District Judge Terry Doughty ruled that the Outer...

Two Florida pari-mutuels filed a new motion in federal district court in Washington late Tuesday, asking a judge to block implementation of online sports betting under the Florida tribal gaming compact which is scheduled to begin later this year. The motion, filed by Magic City Casino and Bonita Springs Poker Room against U.S. Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland, asks a court to enjoin the sports-betting portion of the state’s compact with the Seminole Tribe of Florida. The compact gives the tribe a monopoly over sports betting in the state by allowing wagers to go through an internet server on...

The Biden administration on Monday challenged a federal judge’s decision in June to block the Interior Department’s pause on oil and gas leasing on public lands and waters – a critical piece of its climate change policy – but will proceed with leasing during the appeals process.

A federal judge in Louisiana last month blocked President Biden’s suspension of new oil and gas leasing on federal land and ordered the Administration to resume auctions. Interior Secretary Deb Haaland on Thursday gave the judge the back of her hand. The Biden Administration in January imposed a “pause” on oil and gas leasing on public lands nationwide while the Interior Department performed an environmental review of the program. The review still isn’t done, and Interior still hasn’t announced leasing sales despite federal Judge Terry Doughty’s ruling that the pause violated the law. Ms. Haaland’s line has been that the...

Leftist environmentalists have taken advantage of an Alaskan tribe's hypocritical grievances to ban drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.resident Joe Biden continued to follow through on his campaign pledge to enact leftist environmentalism this month when he suspended oil and gas leases in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR). The decision was cheered by leftist environmental groups as a victory for wildlife and social justice, supposedly protecting indigenous tribes from the alleged devastation of oil and gas drilling hundreds of miles from their homes. Biden Climate Adviser Gina McCarthy celebrated the move as “an important step forward fulfilling President...

KELLY TSHIBAKA: Lisa Murkowski has been complicit in enabling Joe Biden’s radical environmental extremism agenda. She was opposed to Donald Trump in 2016, opposed to him in 2020, was an obstacle to him through his entire administration—never mind that he was one of the best presidents we’ve had for Alaska and our energy policy. But, on top of that, she’s helping Joe Biden. She was the deciding vote that let Deb Haaland through the energy committee and it’s under Secretary Haaland and the Department of Interior that’s leading this suspension of our leases that have been lawfully executed. That vote...

A New Mexico Democratic congressional candidate says she supports sanctions against Israel—a position she adopted after Hamas fired thousands of rockets at the Jewish state. "[I] would support divestment or sanctions initiatives that work towards the goal of a two-state solution," Melanie Stansbury, who is running in a special election for the House seat vacated by Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland, told Jewish Insider this week. The New Mexico state representative also said she supports conditioning aid for Israel to ensure it is never used "for actions against Palestine," a position popular among left-wing Democrats such as Rep. Rashida...

Haaland, 60, was speaking about being the first Native American woman to hold the position when the funnyman host spotted a guy in a suit on all fours. “Considering I was sworn in by the very first female vice president, also a woman of color, that was really probably the best par —” Haaland said before Meyers cut her off. “I am sorry, Secretary. I am going to interrupt you real quick,” Meyers said as the staffer sneakily ducked behind a desk and out of the frame. “You have a staffer who fully crawled on the carpet behind you —...

New Mexico Democrat Representative Deb Haaland was confirmed as the next secretary of the Department of the Interior on Monday, making her the first Native American Cabinet secretary in the country’s history. Senators voted 51-40 to confirm Haaland, who was strongly supported by advocates for conservation and Native American issues. She will soon lead an agency critical to the Biden administration’s efforts to confront climate change. Haaland said the confirmation was another crucial step in increasing Native American “visibility.” Haaland will soon be leading a federal agency with wide-ranging responsibilities on public lands throughout the country. The Interior Department approves...

Like most new racial history exercises, land acknowledgments are less about a true reflection of the past than grievance politics and superficial gestures.Leftist media was all aglow on Feb. 23, when Interior Department Secretary nominee Deb Haaland began her testimony before the Senate by stating: “I acknowledge that we are on the ancestral homelands of the Nacotchtank, Anacostan, and Piscataway people.”A Vox article gushed: “It’s likely the first time a Cabinet nominee acknowledged tribal lands upon testifying before the Senate.” An indigenous activist in the Washington Post called it a “rebuke of … the countless politicians and bureaucrats who dedicated...

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is facing dissent in her caucus ahead of Tuesday’s vote to confirm the passage of the $1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief bill. With the Democrats’ slim 221-211 House advantage, Pelosi can afford no more than four defections in the vote scheduled for Tuesday. But two members of her caucus, Reps. Marcia Fudge of Ohio and Deb Haaland of New Mexico, could be confirmed to Biden administration posts as soon as Wednesday. That could further amplify gripes coming from Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and other left-leaning House comrades after some of their major initiatives were stripped out of the...

In Joe Biden's caretaker administration, it's amazing how many misdeeds can be erased through the useful tool of identity politics. Take his nomination Deb Haaland, a congresswoman representing greater Albuquerque, who's a registered member of a Native American tribe ... and a tax cheat, energy ignoramus, persistent welfare recipient, and marijuana booster, who has now advanced in the Senate as his nominee to run the $12 billion U.S. Department of the Interior. Her trump card in qualifications after all those red flags? That she's half-Native American and has mastered the identity politics games of victimhood. What could go wrong? Unlike,...

Rep. Deb Haaland (D-N.M.), President Joe Biden’s nominee for secretary of the interior, refused to answer basic questions about energy and fossil fuels on public lands. Haaland had previously campaigned on eliminating oil and gas production in New Mexico and Biden has pledged to eliminate drilling on public lands, yet the nominee played dumb when faced with elementary questions on these issues.Rather than responding to basic questions and acknowledging the economic devastation that banning or restricting fossil fuels on public lands would entail, Haaland repeated that she has not been “briefed” on “that specific issue.”Here are five gobsmacking moments from...

On Tuesday, NM Democrat Rep. Deb Haaland spoke in front of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee in her first confirmation hearing to be U.S. Department of the Interior (DOI) secretary. However, during the committee, her extreme left-wing agenda was picked apart by even the most moderate senators in the committee, angered by the Biden administration’s assault on fossil fuels energy. Despite claiming in her opening statement that “fossil energy does and will continue to play a major role in America for years to come. I know how important oil and gas revenues are… critical services, but we must...

Over the weekend, Sen. Steve Daines (R-MT) announced that he was “deeply concerned” with Joe Biden’s cabinet nominee for the Department of the Interior, Rep. Deb Haaland (D-NM). He vowed to block Haaland’s nomination if his needs were not addressed. Daines’ statement following his conversation with Haaland reads as follows: “After our conversation, I’m deeply concerned with the Congresswoman’s support on several radical issues that will hurt Montana, our way of life, our jobs and rural America, including her support for the Green New Deal and President Biden’s oil and gas moratorium, as well as her opposition to the Keystone...

Gina McCarthy and Deb Haaland are on Biden’s climate team. This should be interesting given both of their ties to the disastrous Gold King Mine spill of 2015. That year, a mine up near Silverton, Colorado was under clean-up protocols by the EPA. The same EPA that Gina McCarthy was running at the time. Then, the spill happened. The Animas River turned into yellow sludge from southwestern Colorado all the way into and nearly through New Mexico. Who lives in New Mexico and just the year before lost her bid to be NM Lieutenant Governor? Joe Biden’s new choice for...

Another one of Joe Biden’s cabinet picks is being celebrated and ushered in with open arms by the media, without not a word of scrutiny. Last week, the President-Elect tapped an anti-religious bigot and abortion enthusiast for Health and Human Services Secretary, but you would never know it by how the media glowingly reported on his nomination. Similarly, yesterday’s announcement that Biden picked an Antifa-defending, radical Democrat congresswoman, who bullied and smeared the Covington Catholic students in 2019, to be a cabinet secretary, was met with similar praise from journalists. Freshman Rep. Deb Haaland (D- N.M.) was nominated for Secretary...

SANTA FE — New Mexico congresswoman Deb Haaland has been tapped as President-elect Joe Biden’s interior secretary, according to The Washington Post and other national news outlets. If confirmed, Haaland, 60, would make history as the nation’s first-ever Native American cabinet secretary and would lead an influential federal agency that oversees more than 500 million acres of public lands and tribal issues. Haaland, who is a Laguna Pueblo member and former San Felipe Pueblo tribal administrator, had been touted as a potential Cabinet pick by many fellow House members and Native American groups. As head of the Interior Department, Haaland...