Interior Secretary Deb Haaland has a long and seemingly insurmountable to-do list, including a pledge to begin repairing a legacy of broken treaties and other abuses against tribes.

Transcript

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Deb Haaland made history when she was confirmed as the first Indigenous interior secretary on Monday. Now that the celebrations over, she's promised to begin repairing a legacy of broken treaties and abuses committed by the federal government in Indian country. NPR's Kirk Siegler reports on the huge challenges ahead for Secretary Haaland.

KIRK SIEGLER, BYLINE: With so much land under federal control, there's an old saying here in the West that the interior secretary has a more direct effect on people's day-to-day lives than the president. This is multiplied on reservations. In her confirmation hearing, Deb Haaland nodded to the fact that the department she now leads was historically a tool of oppression toward tribes.

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DEB HAALAND: If an Indigenous woman from humble beginnings can be confirmed as secretary of the interior, our country holds promise for everyone.

SIEGLER: Mending a legacy of broken promises is a priority for many of the 574 federally recognized tribes. On the Nez Perce Reservation, elders like Mary Jane Miles see Haaland as a turning point.

MARY JANE MILES: It feels like we are moving and we are claiming what we could have done a long time ago.

SIEGLER: The Nez Perce consider much of the Northwest their ancestral land. But through a series of treaties, they're now confined to a small slice of remote Idaho river country. The U.S. government is supposed to protect that land and its salmon. But the fish, the lifeline for people here along the Clearwater River, are nearing extinction due to dams and climate change. Miles also points to a legacy of toxic messes from mining that the tribe had little say over.

MILES: I think we've noticed that maybe we've been taken.

SIEGLER: But nationwide, tribal leaders think this might start changing under Haaland. The Biden administration is reinstating an Obama-era rule requiring consultation. That means any future lands development or right of way projects like a pipeline must be approved first by tribes, and Secretary Haaland is going to oversee all of that.

JON ECHOHAWK: Protection of this government-to-government relationship is all important to the tribes.

SIEGLER: In Colorado, Jon Echohawk at the Native American Rights Fund says that relationship is fraught because interior agencies like the Bureau of Indian Affairs have been chronically underfunded. He says the previous administration also spurned tribal input on major lands decisions, something he's looking forward to restarting.

ECHOHAWK: Well, it would prevent things from happening, you know, that happened to us here during the last administration - elimination of 85% of the Bears Ears National Monument, the Keystone XL pipeline.

SIEGLER: President Obama formally protected the Bears Ears Monument on Utah land considered sacred to native people. Then the Trump administration dramatically reduced its boundaries, and there's pressure on the new administration to reinstate or even expand them. Secretary Haaland will travel there next month for a listening tour. Her to-do list is a big one.

CASEY MITCHELL: Tatsaluk (ph). Good afternoon. (Non-English language spoken).

SIEGLER: Back on the Nez Perce, tribal leaders like Casey Mitchell want Haaland's ear on saving the salmon, and he's optimistic. Unlike with previous administrations, there's no learning curve with Secretary Haaland.

MITCHELL: There's always such high turnover within government entities that, you know, sometimes that plays as an excuse. And as a government entity, there should not be any excuse for the trust responsibility that you hold to the tribes.

SIEGLER: For the Nez Perce, that trust responsibility is at the heart of a new deal brokered by a Republican congressman to remove four dams on the Snake River just downstream from here, a plan they hope Deb Haaland will put in front of the president soon. Kirk Siegler, NPR News, Lapwai, Idaho. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.

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