“I will be forcing debate on Rep. Haaland’s nomination to Interior,” [Montana Senator Steve] Daines said in a press release on Tuesday [3/9/21]. “Her record is clear: She opposes pipelines & fossil fuels, ignores science when it comes to wildlife management and wants to ban trapping on public lands. Her views will hurt the Montana way of life and kill Montana jobs.”
Representative Deb Haaland, from New Mexico, said in acknowledging the nomination to become Secretary of the Interior (2/23/21), “I’ve lived most of my adult life paycheck to paycheck. I pieced together healthcare for me and my child as a single mom, and at times relied on food stamps to put food on the table. It’s because of these struggles that I fully understand the role interior must play in the president’s plan to build back better, to responsibly manage our natural resources to protect them for future generations so that we can continue to work, live, hunt, fish, and pray among them .… If confirmed, I will work my heart out for everyone, the families of fossil fuel workers who helped build our country, ranchers and farmers who care deeply for their lands, communities with legacies of toxic pollution, people of color whose stories deserve to be heard, and those who want jobs of the future.”
Which of these comes closest to your sense of the Montana way of life?
Mary Fahnestock-Thomas
Hamilton