One of the legacies President Biden leaves behind when he exits the White House is his record on conserving and protecting the country's public lands and water.

Deb Holland, Biden's Secretary of the Interior, played a key role in implementing his policies over the last four years.

And I spoke with her earlier this week.

Secretary Holland, welcome to the News Hour. It's great to have you here in person.

Thank you.

So happy to be here.

So as the very first native person ever to serve as Cabinet Secretary, United States history,

we should point out you were leading a department that once worked to remove indigenous people from their land.

And I know a lot has been written about how you wanted to use this role to really examine and grapple with history here in America.

A big part of this was the work you did looking into the actual work governments did to separate indigenous children from their families, put them into boarding schools, strip them of their history and language and culture.

When President Biden issued an apology for these actions,

what was that moment like for you? What stays with you?

Oh, absolutely. Yes, that was absolutely an historic moment.

And sitting in the crowd listening to the president with my fellow

indigenous friends and relatives around me. It was very profound. Now, we finished that second

report for the boarding school initiative and we put a list of recommendations and no sooner

did we get that out and over to the White House

that the White House called us and said the President wants to make an apology.

So he immediately felt the need to be out there and following our recommendations.

So we were all very pleased and of course it's important because

as I always say, Native American history is American history and we all need to, as Americans,

we all need to heal from these tragic moments in our history. And so the healing part of what

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