{"id":26593,"date":"2024-07-19T11:18:56","date_gmt":"2024-07-19T17:18:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/boebert-looks-to-replace-haaland-at-interior-department-if-trump-wins\/"},"modified":"2024-07-19T17:18:56","modified_gmt":"2024-07-19T17:18:56","slug":"boebert-looks-to-replace-haaland-at-interior-department-if-trump-wins","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/boebert-looks-to-replace-haaland-at-interior-department-if-trump-wins\/","title":{"rendered":"Boebert looks to replace Haaland at Interior Department if Trump wins"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Republican
Republican Rep. Lauren Boebert of Colorado, left, speaks with Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland during Haaland\u2019s visit to Grand Junction on July 23, 2021. (Sharon Sullivan for Colorado Newsline)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>\n

MILWAUKEE \u2014 If U.S. Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colorado) gets her way, she will be the next Interior Department secretary in another Donald Trump administration.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think Lauren Boebert needs to be the secretary of the Interior. President Trump, I would like to be secretary of the Interior,\u201d she said on Native America Calling on Wednesday \u2014 the third day of the Republican National Convention.<\/p>\n

She would replace Interior Secretary Deb Haaland (Laguna), who is the current leader for the department under President Joe Biden. Haaland was celebrated as the first Native American cabinet secretary, and she has ushered in more knowledge on issues affecting tribal governments.<\/p>\n

Speculation on potential cabinet positions is early with the presidential election still a few months away.<\/p>\n

Boebert has never publicly stated her interest in the job, her campaign confirmed, and the idea appeared to be spontaneous.<\/p>\n

As Boebert walked by the Native America Calling radio show booth during its live broadcast Wednesday afternoon, she was quickly asked if she supports tribal sovereignty and her thoughts on the Interior Department\u2019s policies.<\/p>\n

Boebert said she would reverse Haaland-led efforts, like expanding Bears Ears National Monument, and she spoke in favor of expanding coal and \u201cdrilling\u201d projects.<\/p>\n

The U.S. Department of the Interior is responsible for managing public lands, mineral rights and all programs that meet the U.S. Trust obligation to Native American tribes for things like health care, schools and economic development.<\/p>\n

Boebert said she supports tribal sovereignty. And she wants to move Bureau of Land Management offices out of Washington, D.C., and into other states, a fight that would continue where the last GOP Interior secretary, William Perry Pendley, left off.<\/p>\n

She did not directly address any type of support for tribal nations that would want to work on land conservation projects or environmental protections measures. Instead she tried to argue that \u201cdrilling\u201d on tribal lands is a means of environmental land management for tribes.<\/p>\n

\"Rep.
Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colorado) discusses Interior Department issues with Native America Calling on Wednesday, July 17, 2024, at the Republican National Convention. (Art Hughes\/Native America Calling)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

\u201cI believe that that is a cleaner way to take care of the environment and extract those resources that we have been blessed with to use what\u2019s given to us by the earth to produce this energy in a clean and efficient way, rather than just covering it up with solar panels and wind turbines.\u201d<\/p>\n

When she was asked about the Antiquities Act, an executive action that created the expansion of Bears Ears and other national monuments, she said \u201cUgh, the Antiquities Act, nope.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s been a lot of things through the Antiquities Act where we have had land grabs by the federal government. I do not want any land grabs. I do not want more wilderness areas. I don\u2019t want these, these areas where we are unable to actually manage the land,\u201d Boebert said.<\/p>\n

The message goes directly to Boebert\u2019s consistent position on energy exploration in the West, something that also aligns with Trump policies in his first term.<\/p>\n

Boebert\u2019s family has had financial ties to the oil and gas industry, according to reports during her first term in Congress. She has one of the lowest-rated records on the environment. Recently she blasted a new BLM rule meant to promote conservation as a \u201cmisguided land grab meant to prevent oil and gas production at a time when sky-high gas prices and inflation are looting the pocketbooks of the American people.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI am pro fossil fuels, oil and gas, and I especially want to explore nuclear,\u201d she said during the interview. \u201cBut I think that our tribal lands are impacted severely when we are shutting down our coal-fired energy plants.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Haaland was celebrated as the first Native American cabinet secretary<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":26594,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[28,29],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-26593","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-headlines","tag-newsletter"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26593","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26593"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26593\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26594"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26593"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26593"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26593"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=26593"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}