(Bloomberg) -- President-elect Donald Trump said he will nominate Doug Burgum for Interior secretary, a position that will give the North Dakota governor significant influence over plans to boost domestic energy production.
Trump announced the decision Thursday night during a gala at his Mar-a-Lago resort in South Florida ahead of a formal announcement that he said had been intended for Friday.
“We’re going to do things with energy and with land, interior, that is going to be incredible,” Trump said. “He’s going to head the Department of Interior, and he’s going to be fantastic.”
The Interior Department oversees energy development, grazing and other activities on some 500 million acres of public land, as well as US federal waters. Under Trump, Burgum would likely be responsible for ramping up the sale of oil and gas leases, including in the Gulf of Mexico, which had been constrained under President Joe Biden.
A current plan plots just three offshore oil lease auctions between 2024 and 2029 — the lowest level ever. The Interior Department under Biden also imposed a regulation thwarting drilling across more than half of the National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska, where ConocoPhillips and other oil companies hold leases.
Although Trump can direct his Interior Department to revise those policies right away, some would take a while to take effect. For instance, it could take as long as two years for the agency to finish necessary environmental reviews and clear other procedural requirements before it could impose a new, expedited schedule for selling offshore drilling rights.
Energy-Rich Home
Burgum, 68, ran a long-shot bid for the Republican nomination before dropping out and endorsing Trump. A technology entrepreneur and venture capital investor, Burgum hails from an energy-rich state. The governor was born in Arthur, North Dakota — a town of roughly 300 residents in the heart of the Bakken shale oil patch.
Burgum himself campaigned during the primary on promises to unleash American energy production, criticizing climate policies he said threaten to deepen US reliance on Chinese technology.
But as governor, Burgum’s record is more nuanced. He embraced a policy that could be seen delivering a fatal blow to fossil fuels — reaching carbon neutrality by 2030 — and unveiled his pitch at an oil conference.
Burgum earned an MBA from Stanford University, worked as a consultant at McKinsey & Co., and leveraged his family farm to start a tech company called Great Plains Software. He then sold his firm in 2001 to Microsoft Corp. for $1.1 billion and stayed on as a senior vice president until 2007.
He later founded real estate development company Kilbourne Group and venture capital firm Arthur Ventures before entering politics and winning his first term as governor in 2016.
His extensive connections to the business and tech world helped him build support for his own presidential bid in the 2024 cycle. After exiting the race, he became an energetic surrogate for Trump, crisscrossing the country to appear at campaign events and tapping his connections with deep-pocketed donors to build the president-elect’s war chest.
Those efforts propelled Burgum into Trump’s circle and onto the short list the president-elect considered for his running mate.
Energy Production
If confirmed by the Senate, Burgum is also set to play a pivotal role in shaping the near-term future for offshore wind farms planned near US coasts. The Interior Department’s Bureau of Ocean Energy Management has already approved 10 commercial-scale offshore wind projects in federal waters hugging the US East Coast.
But several more are still in the planning phase, which makes them especially vulnerable to any shifts in permitting at the agency, including a potential pause in those reviews. Existing lawsuits against already approved projects also could open a window for the Trump administration to settle cases and revisit previous authorizations.
The Interior Department’s most public-facing interaction is perhaps as the chief operator of the national park system. But it’s also critical to Native Americans: The Interior Department upholds federal responsibilities to Native Americans, and its Bureau of Indian Affairs works directly with 578 federally recognized Native American tribes.
It’s also the lead agency in making decisions about which plants and animals qualify for protection under the Endangered Species Act.
(Updates to add additional context, background throughout)
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