“Representative Haaland has a hostile record towards made in America energy, natural resource development, and wildlife and land management,” said Montana Republican Sen. Steve Daines in a Monday statement, who placed a hold on Haaland’s confirmation to protest the nomination.

Yet Haaland, who was elected to Congress in 2018 as a climate activist, emerged through the procedural delay and will now lead the agency overseeing 20 percent of U.S. land with nearly a quarter of the nation’s oil and gas production. Haaland’s activist history, which includes standing with protestors against the South Dakota Access Pipeline Project, spells bad news for American energy.

While praising the importance of fossil fuels in her Senate confirmation hearing to appease Republican concerns, Haaland has maintained she is “wholeheartedly against fracking and drilling on public lands,” despite such activity serving as the lifeblood of her home state’s economy.

New Mexico, the nation’s largest beneficiary of public land drilling, now faces economic ruin from Biden’s pause on oil and gas leases on federal lands, which is likely to become permanent. Within his first two months in office, Biden also yanked the permit for the Keystone XL Pipeline and ordered the Interior Department, which Haaland will now lead, to review existing permits for oil and gas operations on federal land.

“If I am confirmed as secretary, I would be serving at the pleasure of the president, and it would be his agenda that I would move forward,” Haaland told Senate lawmakers.

Haaland will also be the first Native American to serve as a cabinet secretary.

The upper chamber also voted Monday to confirm liberal North Carolina environmental activist Michael Regan last week, raising more concerns over Biden’s energy agenda.

“Michael Regan and Deb Haaland place a very high priority on eliminating American conventional energy production and use,” said Heartland Institute President James Taylor, who leads the libertarian think tank. “One cannot vote to confirm either nominee and thereafter claim to be looking out for affordable energy or the many workers in the coal, oil, or natural gas industries.”

Since the Democratic primary, Biden gave contradictory answers on his position about a ban on hydraulic fracturing, even as he put an original co-sponsor of the Senate’s version of the Green New Deal on the ticket.

Voter: what about, say, stopping fracking?

Biden: yes!

— Abigail Marone (@abigailmarone) August 31, 2020

During one fall presidential debate, Biden claimed he opposed the Green New Deal, which mandates the rapid decarbonization of the American economy under a socialist agenda. The Biden campaign website, however, maintained a statement claiming the former vice president’s support for the left-wing proposal.

The new president’s picks to lead the nation’s most powerful agencies over public lands confirm Biden’s commitment to an extremist left environmental agenda.

This has happened to lots of people. I spent a couple hours on the phone and straightened it out.

— Harmeet K. Dhillon (@pnjaban) January 25, 2021

Attkisson did not respond to The Federalist’s inquiries to share her story in greater detail, or whether her issues were eventually resolved. Her post, however, clearly caught attention with more than 3,000 retweets and more than 2,5000 replies, some sharing testimonies of a similar experience, others offering advice on how to get through to the IRS.

Several accountants have told The Federalist that they too, have witnessed the IRS harassing taxpayers for more money when they had already paid on time and in full, but were still threatened with penalties. None went on record out of fear of retribution from the all-powerful government agency.

Jordan Butler, a tax attorney in Columbus, Ohio with Carlile Patchen and Murphy LLP, told The Federalist that while he’s not recently seen the kind of harassment detailed above, it comes as no surprise citing recent experience.

“I do have a client who filed several years’ worth of tax returns in November 2020 and made payment of all past-due amounts,” Butler told The Federalist. “Now more than two months later, the client continues to receive levy and collection notices. The client has described them as ‘intimidating and unwarranted.'”

When Butler contacted the IRS, he said the agency chalked up the issue to pandemic-related delays in processing returns. The explanation, Butler said, made sense.

“If I’m not mistaken, many IRS notices are automatically generated,” Butler explained. “Without an individual processing the return and payment, and noting as much in the taxpayer’s account, the notices will continue to be automatically generated and sent.”

That’s likely what happened with Attkisson and others, combined with the difficulty of getting in touch with a real person.

When reached for comment, the IRS simply referred The Federalist to its operations page pointing specifically to its “Received a Bill or Notice” section outlining what taxpayers can do if they receive a bill already paid or have questions over.

“We’re open and processing mail, tax returns, payments, refunds and correspondence. However, COVID-19 continues to cause delays in some of our services,” the IRS website reads, highlighting review of tax returns even filed electronically as an area the agency remains behind.

“It would certainly be prudent for the IRS to make adjustments to its notice generation procedure, or provide some mechanism whereby taxpayers can submit proof that the returns have be filed and payments made,” Butler recommended. “While that will not speed up processing time, it should facilitate a hold being put on any notices being sent to such taxpayers until the returns are actually processed.”

According to Gallup, drops in mental health ratings were most prominent among Republicans, where 41 percent reported being in “excellent” condition in the Nov. 5-19 poll, a 15-point drop from 56 percent who said the same a year ago. Republicans however, still held a higher-rate of mental well-being than Democrats, 29 percent of whom rated their mental health as “excellent.”

Those with the greatest ratings of mental well-being were attendants of weekly religious services, who were the only sub-group to report a rise in their mental health from 42 percent to 46 percent reporting their psyche of being in excellent shape.

The Gallup poll surveying 1,018 Americans over the age of 18 corroborates research suggesting that a higher importance of religious spirituality in one’s life can abate the symptoms of mental distress exacerbated by isolation and uncertainty imposed pandemic lockdowns.

According to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) in August, 2 in 5 Americans reported suffering from symptoms of anxiety, depression, trauma, or stressor-related disorder stemming from the coronavirus pandemic. One in four young adults aged 18-24 reported seriously contemplating suicide within the 30 days of completing the survey, and 16 percent said the same between the ages of 25 and 44.

The national suicide hotline is 1-800-273-8255. More resources are here.

The Gallup data shows individuals placing a greater value in religion illustrated a higher mental well-being as opposed to those who don’t. Forty-six percent of weekly service-goers said their mental condition remained excellent, 35 percent of those who said they attended services either nearly weekly or monthly said so, and only 29 percent of those who said they never went to religious services reported the same.

“Faith is hope that there’s a future,” East Tennessee therapist Allysen Efferson told The Federalist in May, and the science bears that out.

Columbia University psychologist Lisa Miller found in 2014 that spirituality and religion can act as a psychic armor to protect individuals from depression by thickening the brain cortex. Three years prior, Miller found that among adults who reported a high importance on religion or spirituality, 76 percent were less likely to suffer from a major depressive episode, even when their parents had depression therefore raising their risk.