U.S. Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland highlighted Vice President Kamala Harris’ record on the environment on the final night of the Democratic National Convention.

Haaland, Laguna Pueblo, spoke on Thursday evening in Chicago at the DNC. Her presence helped to emphasize one of the convention’s final night themes of drawing stark differences between Harris’ record on environmental issues and former President Donald Trump’s. 

Haaland, who made history in 2021 when she became the first Native American to serve as a cabinet secretary, said that Harris held polluters accountable for “spilling oil into San Francisco Bay.”

Haaland represented New Mexico’s 1st Congressional District before becoming Interior Secretary.

Harris joined a criminal case in 2015, during her time as California attorney general, against an oil company responsible for an oil spill that resulted in 140,000 gallons of crude leaking into the Pacific Ocean. 

Haaland also pointed to former President Barack Obama’s Clean Power Plan, saying that Harris defended it while she was California attorney general. As vice president and the tiebreaker in many votes in the U.S. Senate, Harris voted for “the most ambitious climate action plan in our nation’s history,” Haaland said.

Harris provided the tie-breaking vote in the U.S. Senate for the Inflation Reduction Act, which provided $27 billion to cut emissions and promote clean energy.

Haaland said Trump relaxed regulations enabling corporations to pollute and called climate change “a hoax.” She said a president “must lead the world in tackling climate change.”

Haaland began her short speech by speaking in her native language and telling the public she is of the Turquoise Clan. She told the audience her people “built lives in the high desert of New Mexico” 35 generations ago.

“I’m on this stage tonight because of them. While fishing with my dad and running through the desert with my cousins, I learned that we have a responsibility to take care of our planet. Donald Trump never learned that lesson,” she said.

Haaland exhorted the audience to “be fierce,” just before ending her remarks. 

“Let me go back to the lesson I learned in the desert Southwest, we all have a role in protecting our earth for future generations,” she said.