U.S. Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland spoke about confronting the climate change crisis at the University of Michigan on Tuesday. She was interrupted immediately and persistently by one person who was protesting Enbridge's 70-year-old Line 5 petroleum pipeline located on the lake bed of the Straits of Mackinac which connects Lakes Michigan and Huron.
“Do you call upon (President Joe) Biden to revoke the President’s permit that’s encouraging and enabling Line 5?” the protester asked Secretary Haaland repeatedly.
“I really appreciate your voice. I see you. I hear you. I have some remarks I’d like to get through," Haaland responded.
Despite the frequent interruptions for about 15 minutes of the speech, Haaland continued to talk about the effects of climate change on national parks and refuges as well as water sources, particularly in the West.
During a question and answer session afterward, she addressed the Line 5 issue.
Haaland is the first Native American to head up the Department of Interior which oversees the National Park Service, the National Wildlife Refuges, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and notably, the Bureau of Indian Affairs.
She noted that she visited in the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe protests to stop the construction of the Dakota Access oil pipeline. She acknowledged shutting down the Line 5 pipeline which runs through Wisconsin and Michigan is important to many people.
“Stopping Line 5, it could never happen fast enough for anyone,” Haaland said.
She added that the judicial and diplomatic issues are complex, but encouraged those who oppose Line 5 to keep speaking out to the Biden administration.
At the end of her formal remarks, she talked about children being born into a world where they'll immediately have to worry about the challenges of climate change caused by previous generations. Then talked about a story she saw as a parallel, the tens of millions of bison that were slaughtered in the 19th century, nearly wiping out buffalo in the U.S. as part of an effort to take away an important source of food for many tribes to weaken them.
She noted that slowly but surely, efforts to bring back bison are working. She suggested there was a connection.
“Little by little, Americans step up to do the right thing. And, I know that all of you in this room feel the same way as I do about that. So, we’ll just keep working hard and keep doing the right thing.”
Enbridge is among Michigan Public's corporate sponsors.
