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01/16/2025 | Press release | Distributed by Public on 01/16/2025 09:57

Billionaire Burgum Is Wrong Choice For Interior Department

January 16, 2025

Billionaire Burgum Is Wrong Choice For Interior Department

Washington - The U.S. Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources today will hold a hearing on the nomination of North Dakota Governor Doug Burgumto be President-elect Donald Trump's Interior Secretary. Tyson Slocum, director of Public Citizen's Energy Program, issued the following statement:

"Doug Burgum, the billionaire governor of North Dakota, bought his way into Trump's orbit by launching a long-shot presidential campaign with his fortune from selling his software company to Microsoft. Burgum is also a real estate and technology investor who leases his own land for oil explorationto Continental Resources, run by close Trump ally Harold Hamm.

"Burgum's corporate background does not qualify him to run an agency with jurisdiction over 500 million acres of land and 1.7 billion acres offshore on the Outer Continental Shelf. Rather, his extensive corporate ties ensure that the Interior Department would be led by a Big Oil lackey who will prioritize the American Petroleum Institute over the American people.

"Burgum's anti-regulation agenda would open up the door for massive exploitation of the nation's public lands for oil, gas, coal, and mining, reversing the modest progress that the country has made to transition to a clean energy economy during the Biden years.

"Trump has named Burgum to lead a new White House energy council, potentially named the National Energy Dominance Council, according to Politico.Trump has given the Interior Secretary a role on the National Security Council for the first time.

"Trump has claimed that this new position is needed to promote domestic energy productioneven though the U.S. is already the largest producer of petroleum products in the history of the world, and the globe's biggest natural gas producer, and is exporting gas at record levels. This prospect of Trump using a bogus national energy emergencyexploiting Burgum's role on the National Security Council to promote dirty energy production and its export is ripe for abuse and of the utmost concern."

Check out Public Citizen's Trackeron Trump Appointees' Corporate Conflicts of Interest.

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