(Robert Jonathan, Headline USA) Interior Secretary Deb Haaland embarrassed herself during Capitol Hill testimony Tuesday by seeming oblivious to how the Biden team’s climate change radicalism is further empowering the communist dictatorship in China.
“Haaland repeatedly gave the impression that she knows nothing about the department she heads or the ramifications of the policies she is pushing through it,” wrote the Washington Examiner. “Her repeated blank stares and hesitant, sheepish answers suggested she was only for the first time hearing crucial facts related to the nation’s natural resources.”
Haaland—a one-term congresswoman from New Mexico who identifies as Native American—was one of the Biden administration’s most widely touted “diversity” hires.
Among her interrogators was Rep. Ryan Zinke, R-Mont., who served as Haaland’s predecessor overseeing the Interior Department during the Trump administration.
“Are you aware that China controls, by proxy production, the supply chain of critical minerals that are critical to both the [electric vehicle] world and defense?,” Zinke asked.
“Thank you for that information,” Haaland robotically replied.
The Biden administration has assumed a hostile posture toward domestic mining of rare-earth metals, many of which are located in lands that the Obama and Biden administrations designated as federally protected national monuments in a series of audacious land grabs.
Haaland recently placed a moratorium on mining projects in a large area of Minnesota, and similar mining bans are in place in Arizona and Alaska, with probably more federal edicts to come.
Despite the mining restrictions for elements including lithium—a crucial component to manufacturing the batteries used in electric vehicles—the Biden regime has continued to push its green agenda, demanding that automobile manufacturers focus less on fossil fuels and more on electricity.
That gives China—as a leading producer of rare-earth metals—a distinct economic advantage, even as it poses one of the greatest threats to U.S. national security.
“Green energy technologies like electric vehicle batteries, solar panels and wind turbines require a massive expansion of cobalt, copper, lithium, nickel, graphite, zinc and other mineral production,” wrote Fox News.
“…The vast majority of mining and processing of such materials, though, takes place outside the U.S., making the nation more reliant on foreign minerals despite its large domestic resources,” it added.
Zinke further pointed out the irony that China is the world’s biggest polluter, unlike the U.S. and its allies which are “stewards of the environment.”
Haaland inexplicably replied that “I have probably read that somewhere.”
After Zinke also underscored how America is economically vulnerable to China, Haaland laughably claimed, “I know that energy independence is a priority of President Biden.”
When Rep. Guy Reschenthaler, R-Pa., got his turn, he managed to get Haaland to agree that under Biden, “electric vehicles and renewables deepen our reliance on China.”
🚨 Biden Interior Secretary Deb Haaland ADMITS electric vehicles make the United States dependent on China pic.twitter.com/Nlbx1f6lRo
— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) March 28, 2023
Haaland’s testimony also revealed her ignorance over what was contained in the so-called Green New Deal—a bill that she, herself, had co-sponsored during her brief stint in Congress.
ABSOLUTELY CLUELESS:
Biden Interior Secretary Deb Haaland is unable to answer even the most basic questions about the so-called "Green New Deal" — which she co-sponsored when she was in Congress. pic.twitter.com/G6qiTfyYeC
— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) March 28, 2023
Under former President Donald Trump, America was energy independent, even becoming a net oil exporter for the first time in 75 years.
