“If confirmed by the Senate, Burgum would manage the more than 500 million acres of federal land as well as the fossil fuels and minerals that lie beneath the surface — making him a critical component in Trump’s promise to boost oil and gas output,” POLITICO noted, adding, “North Dakota is the third-largest oil-producing state in the country and also has more than 4 million acres under federal oversight.”
“He’s going to be announced tomorrow for a very big position,” Trump said at Mar-a-Lago Thursday night. “We’re going to do things with energy and with land, Interior, that is going to be incredible. … He’s going to head the Department of the Interior and he’s going to be fantastic. … We’ll make the formal announcement tomorrow.”
In May, Trump praised Burgum, who had launched a bid for the 2024 GOP presidential nomination but exited the race before the Iowa caucuses and endorsed Trump, saying Burgum “probably knows more about energy than anybody I know.”
In July 2023, after the Biden administration’s federal Bureau of Land Management (BLM) proposed stricter regulations on onshore oil and gas leases—including increasing the minimum lease bond by 15 times, reducing leasing areas, and raising the minimum bid amount fivefold—Burgum responded:
These proposed changes are just the latest in the Biden administration’s long list of misguided policies that discourage domestic energy production. By raisings costs for oil and gas producers who want to develop minerals on federal lands, BLM will drive away producers and drive up energy costs for consumers, who will be forced to pay higher prices for fuels imported from countries that don’t produce energy as cleanly as the United States. We should be selling energy to our friends and allies instead of buying it from our adversaries and putting our country’s economy, energy security and national security at risk.
Even some environmental advocates supported Burgum’s selection as Interior Secretary. Collin O’Mara, CEO of the National Wildlife Federation, remarked, “I think he’ll be a very strong champion of the energy dominance agenda. But in North Dakota, he worked to strike a balance, ensuring that critical conservation areas and key tourism sites were protected in the process.”
