Manchin Says He’ll Vote for Deb Haaland for Interior Secretary

Senator Joe Manchin III, the West Virginia Democrat who heads the Senate Energy Committee, announced Wednesday that he will vote to confirm Representative Deb Haaland of New Mexico to head the Interior Department.

Mr. Manchin’s vote could be crucial to Ms. Haaland’s confirmation, as Republicans this week escalated attacks on the former environmental activist, signaling that the vote to confirm her could come down to party lines.

If confirmed, Ms. Haaland would make history as the first Native American to head a cabinet agency. She would also play a central role in advancing President Biden’s climate change agenda, as the head of an agency that oversees over 500 million acres of public lands, including national parks, oil and gas drilling sites, and endangered species habitat. And she would be charged with enacting one of Mr. Biden’s most contentious proposals: the banning of future leases to conduct hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, for oil and gas on public lands.

But her nomination has come under fire as Republicans have expressed concerns about her history of pushing to shut down fossil fuel drilling and pipelines — positions which go further than those of Mr. Biden.

The Republican National Committee on Tuesday sent out an email urging senators to vote against Ms. Haaland, writing, “By nominating Haaland, Biden is embracing far-left special interest groups who do not care what jobs they destroy, do not know the true impacts of their policies, and have no answers on when they can get Americans back to work.”

Should Republicans unite against Ms. Haaland, she will need the support of every Democrat in the equally divided Senate, which would allow Vice President Kamala Harris to cast the deciding vote in a party-line divide. Until now, the vote of Mr. Manchin, who heads the Senate energy panel but has often voted with Republicans on energy policy issues, remained uncertain. Mr. Manchin, whose home state of West Virginia is heavily reliant on coal mining, has expressed concern about Mr. Biden’s plans to curb fossil fuel exploration.

Mr. Manchin’s announcement that he plans to vote for Ms. Haaland also underscores the crucial role he will play in the success or failure of the president’s legislative agenda. (He already said he would vote against another of Mr. Biden’s nominees, Neera Tanden, who was nominated to the head the Office of Management and Budget, casting doubt on her prospects for confirmation.)

In a statement, Mr. Manchin said: “Given the political divisions currently facing our country, I believe that every presidential nominee and every member of Congress must be committed to a new era of bipartisanship. That is the standard the overwhelming majority of Americans expect and deserve.”

Regarding Ms. Haaland, he added, “while we do not agree on every issue, she reaffirmed her strong commitment to bipartisanship, addressing the diverse needs of our country and maintaining our nation’s energy independence.”

Appearing before the Senate Energy Committee on Wednesday for her second day of confirmation hearings, Ms. Haaland faced sharp criticism from oil-state Republicans, who made clear that they will not support her.

Senator John Barrasso of Wyoming, the ranking Republican on the energy panel, singled out remarks made by Ms. Haaland in 2018 as she campaigned to eliminate oil and gas production in New Mexico, and proposed legalizing and taxing cannabis as a way to make up for the lost state revenue.

“Is selling marijuana among what the Biden administration calls the ‘better choices’ that the Biden administration has promised to give displaced oil and gas workers?” Mr. Barrasso asked. He added, “Your preference is to turn to drugs — is what you’ve recommended to the voters — at a time when we know there is high unemployment, and energy workers lose their jobs.”

Ms. Haaland responded that the proposal was intended to signal that she wants to “diversify sources of revenue for education,” and she added, “I don’t know what President Biden’s stance is on marijuana.”

Ms. Haaland told senators repeatedly that in her role as the head of a federal agency, she would carry out the agenda of the president, rather than push per personal views.

“If I’m confirmed as secretary, that is a far different role than a congresswoman representing one small district in my state,” she said. “So I understand that role: It’s to serve all Americans, not just my one district in New Mexico.

President Biden reopened the country on Wednesday to people seeking green cards, ending a ban on legal immigration that President Donald J. Trump imposed last spring, citing what he said was the need to protect American jobs during the pandemic.

In a proclamation, Mr. Biden said that the ban did “not advance the interests of the United States,” challenging Mr. Trump’s claims that the way to protect the American economy during the health crisis was to shut the country off from the rest of the world.

“To the contrary,” Mr. Biden said of his predecessor’s immigration ban, “it harms the United States, including by preventing certain family members of United States citizens and lawful permanent residents from joining their families here. It also harms industries in the United States that utilize talent from around the world.”

The president’s action was the latest example of his efforts to roll back Mr. Trump’s assault on the nation’s immigration system.

In April, as the coronavirus crisis worsened, Mr. Trump ordered a “pause” in the issuance of green cards, one of the primary ways that foreigners can receive permission to live and work in the United States.

At the time, Mr. Trump described his action as a way to protect Americans, millions of whom lost their jobs as the threat of the coronavirus shut down the economy.

Critics of Mr. Trump accused him of using the pandemic as an excuse to further advance his agenda of severely restricting immigration. And many scholars noted that studies had repeatedly cast doubt on the idea that immigration was a direct threat to American jobs because many immigrants take jobs that Americans do not want.

Mr. Biden echoed that sentiment. In his proclamation, he wrote that he found “that the unrestricted entry into the United States” of people seeking green cards was “not detrimental to the interests of the United States.”

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‘We Will Do Better,’ Postmaster Tells House Lawmakers

Louis DeJoy, the postmaster general, testified to the House Oversight Committee at a hearing on Postal Service reforms on Wednesday. It was the first time Mr. DeJoy appeared before lawmakers since the election.

We must acknowledge that during this peak season, we fell far short of meeting our service targets. Too many Americans were left waiting for weeks for important deliveries of mail and packages. This is unacceptable, and I apologize to those customers who felt the impact of our delays. All of us at the Postal Service, from our board to our leadership team to our union association leadership, to every employee, strive to do better in our service to the American people, and we will do better. To confront these urgent issues, our team has been working on a 10-year strategy that will reinforce the Postal Service’s obvious strengths, and address our obvious weaknesses. The key commitments of this plan will include; one, a commitment to six and seven-day week delivery service to every address in the nation, not just because it’s the law, but because it’s the key ingredient to our future success; two, a commitment to stabilizing and strengthening our workforce, especially for our associates who are not yet in a career position. We want every postal employee to have tools, training and supportive environment necessary to enjoy a long-term career with us; and three, a commitment to investing in our network infrastructure, including vehicles, technology and package sortation equipment.

President Biden on Wednesday announced three nominees to fill vacant seats on the Postal Service’s board of governors, a move to increase Democratic influence on the future of the beleaguered agency.

If the nominees are confirmed by the Senate, Democrats and Democratic appointees would gain a majority on the nine-member board. That would give them the power to oust Louis DeJoy, a major Republican donor who has served as postmaster general since last year, should they decide to. The board, not the president, hires and fires the postmaster general.

Mr. Biden’s announcement was his most direct action to date to address the service’s problems. The president’s nominees are Anton Hajjar, the former general counsel of the American Postal Workers Union; Amber McReynolds, the chief executive of the National Vote at Home Institute; and Ron Stroman, who resigned last year as deputy postmaster general and later served on Mr. Biden’s transition as the leader of the agency review team for the Postal Service.

The announcement came on the same day that the House Committee on Oversight and Reform held a hearing on how to address the post office’s widespread service and financial problems, marking the first time that Mr. DeJoy had testified before lawmakers since the…