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us department of interior
25 Dems Vote to Confirm Trump's Interior Secretary, Who Conservationists Warn Endangers the Planet
"Doug Burgum will just be another rubber stamp for Trump's reckless energy agenda," wrote one conservationist.
Jan 31, 2025
With the help of 25 Democrats, the Senate voted Thursday to confirm U.S. President Donald Trump's pick to lead the Department of the Interior, billionaire and former North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum—an ally of the fossil fuel industry.
Environmental groups expressed alarm over Burgum's nomination. As secretary of the interior, Burgum will oversee hundreds of millions of acres of federal land and water, and he has also been tapped as the president's "energy czar" and to lead a separate White House energy council.
During his confirmation hearing, Burgum told senators that the U.S. can use energy development as a way to promote peace and to lower consumer costs, and also raised concerns about the reliability of renewable energy sources promoted during the Biden administration, according to CBS News.
Burgum sailed through his confirmation process, securing his position atop the agency with a vote of 79-18.
The 18 senators who did not vote for him were: Lisa Blunt Rochester (D-Del.), Chris Coons (D-Del.), Tammy Duckworth (D-Ill.), Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii), Andy Kim (D-N.J.), Ed Markey (D-Mass.), Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), Patty Murray (D-Wash.), Alex Padilla (D-Calif.), Gary Peters (D-Mich.), Jack Reed (D-R.I.), Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), and Ron Wyden (D-Ore.).
Sens. Cory Booker (D-N.J.), John Fetterman (D-Pa.), and Jon Ossoff (D-Ga.) were absent.
Mike Sommers, president and CEO of the American Petroleum Institute, a trade associate and lobbying firm for the U.S. oil industry, expressed enthusiasm about Burgum's confirmation, according to The Washington Post.
"Doug Burgum has long been a champion for American energy leadership," Sommers said in a statement to the Post. "We look forward to working with him to implement a pro-American energy approach to federal leasing, starting with removing barriers to development on federal lands and waters and developing a new five-year offshore program."
Meanwhile, environmental groups blasted the Senate's confirmation of Burgum.
"Doug Burgum will just be another rubber stamp for Trump's reckless energy agenda. That isn't the leadership our public lands need," said Kristen Miller, executive director of Alaska Wilderness League, in a statement Friday. "Burgum's loyalty to Trump ignores both the economic realities and the climate crisis we're facing today, especially in Alaska."
The youth climate organization Sunrise Movement called Burgum's confirmation "a win for Big Oil billionaires" and pointed to Burgum's reported role in planning a meeting between Trump and energy executives in spring 2024, during which Trump suggested that they raise $1 billion for his campaign in exchange for tax breaks and large-scale deregulation.
"From opening more public lands for extraction to attacking countless protections of lands, water, and wildlife, it's clear that President Trump is committed to expanding fossil fuels and catering to industry at the expense of our climate, public lands and waters, and wildlife," according to a Wednesday letter sent to the Senate from over 30 environmental, watchdog, and public interest groups. "Doug Burgum will be charged with carrying out this unpopular and dangerous agenda."
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Trump Picks Big Oil Ally and Drilling Enthusiast Doug Burgum for Interior
"Burgum is an oligarch completely out of touch with the overwhelming majority of Americans who cherish our natural heritage," said the executive director of the Center for Biological Diversity.
Nov 15, 2024
President-elect Donald Trump announced Thursday that he has chosen billionaire North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum, a close ally of the fossil fuel industry and vocal proponent of oil drilling, to serve as head of the Interior Department in the incoming administration, a critical post tasked with overseeing hundreds of millions of acres of federal land and water.
Burgum, a friend of oil billionaire Harold Hamm, served as a kind of middleman between Trump's presidential campaign and the fossil fuel industry during the 2024 race. The Washington Postreported that Burgum's selection as interior secretary will "give Hamm expansive influence over policy related to drilling on public lands, at a time his company stands to benefit from the rule changes Trump envisions."
Burgum and Hamm have already worked to shape Trump's energy policy during the presidential transition, with Reutersreporting Thursday that the pair is leading the push for a repeal of electric vehicle tax credits—a key component of the Biden administration's signature climate law, the Inflation Reduction Act.
During a fundraiser over the summer, Burgum said Trump could "on day one" move to unleash "liquid fuels," accusing the Biden administration of waging war on "American energy."
"Whether it's baseload electricity, whether it's oil, whether it's gas, whether it's ethanol, there is an attack on liquid fuels," Burgum declared.
"We're ready to fight Burgum and Trump's extreme agenda every step of the way."
Trump campaigned on a pledge to "drill, baby, drill" in the face of a fossil fuel-driven climate emergency that is wreaking deadly havoc in the United States and around the world. While the Biden administration has presided over record oil and gas production and approved many new drilling permits to the dismay of climate advocates, Trump has made clear that he intends to take a sledgehammer to any guardrails constraining the fossil fuel industry.
In Burgum, Trump will have an enthusiastic champion of oil and gas drilling in a Cabinet that is shaping up to be a boon for the fossil fuel industry. Burgum helped organize the dinner at which Trump urged the oil and gas industry to raise $1 billion for his campaign in exchange for tax breaks and large-scale deregulation.
"We're going do things with energy and with land—Interior—that is going to be incredible," Trump said late Thursday.
Kierán Suckling, executive director of the Center for Biological Diversity, said in a statement that "Burgum is an oligarch completely out of touch with the overwhelming majority of Americans who cherish our natural heritage and don't want our parks, wildlife refuges, and other special places carved up and destroyed."
"We're ready to fight Burgum and Trump's extreme agenda every step of the way," Suckling added.
In his current capacity as North Dakota governor, Burgum is pushing a 2,000-mile carbon pipeline project set to be built by Summit Carbon Solutions with the stated goal of capturing planet-warming CO2 and storing it underground. Climate advocates have long derided carbon capture and storage—a method boosted by the fossil fuel industry—as a dangerous scam that can actually result in more emissions.
The Associated Pressreported earlier this year that "the blowback in North Dakota to the Summit project has been intense with Burgum caught in the crossfire."
"There are fears a pipeline rupture would unleash a lethal cloud of CO2," the outlet noted. "Landowners worry their property values will plummet if the pipeline passes under their land."
The North Dakota Public Service Commission is planning to meet Friday to vote on the project.
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'Catastrophic': EPA Workers Union Slams Trump Pledge to Gut Climate Agencies
"Donald Trump has made it clear that a second Trump term would look worse than his first—with broader attacks on science and the environment driving the day."
Jun 05, 2024
A union representing thousands of Environmental Protection Agency workers raised alarm Tuesday over former President Donald Trump's pledge to slash key federal climate departments if he's reelected in November and condemned his attempt to downplay concerns about the planetary emergency, which is fueling destructive extreme weather and
pushing global temperatures to record highs.
"Donald Trump has made it clear that a second Trump term would look worse than his first—with broader attacks on science and the environment driving the day," Marie Owens Powell, president of American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) Council 238, said in a statement.
"His first four years were a fiasco for the agency bargaining unit workers whose mission it is to protect human health and the environment during this climate emergency, with cuts to the workforce, rollbacks of regulations, and more," Powell added. "Trump has made it clear that a second term would be catastrophic for the environment and reverse the progress made against climate change."
The union's statement came in response to a Sunday Fox Newsinterview in which Trump, the presumptive GOP presidential nominee, said that federal environmental agencies have been "so bad for us," claiming they've "stopped you from doing business in this country."
"We're going to do, like, Department of Interior," Trump said, naming one of the agencies he plans to target. "There's so many things you can do."
The former president, whose administration dismantled more than 100 federal environmental rules during its four years in power, also mocked President Joe Biden's description of the climate crisis as an existential threat and ridiculed fears about rising sea levels.
Trump falsely claimed that rising sea levels mean "you have a little more beachfront property," ignoring catastrophic flooding and other disastrous impacts of ever-rising seas. The U.S. experienced a record number of billion-dollar extreme weather events last year, including destructive flooding.
Trump says he supports climate change and rising sea levels because it “means basically you have a little more beachfront property” pic.twitter.com/qLh0Y1yu6Q
— Biden-Harris HQ (@BidenHQ) June 2, 2024
Powell said Tuesday that Trump's "all-out assault on science and our employees" during his first four years in the White House "led us to issue an EPA Workers' Bill of Rights, which had over 10,000 signatures, many of which were agency employees, and was endorsed by nearly fifty members of Congress and partners in the science community."
"And the prospect of a second Trump term is why we fought so hard to win a first-of-its-kind Scientific Integrity Article in our new contract that will help protect our work from political interference," Powell continued. "Our contract win means workers can stand up for scientific integrity without fear of retaliation, and sends any disputes related to scientific integrity to an independent arbitrator instead of a political appointee."
"The climate emergency we are facing hurts everyone, regardless of political party," the union leader added, "and the EPA and its employees protect everyone's health and the environment, regardless of their political agenda."
Trump and his right-wing allies have repeatedly expressed their intention to aggressively target federal environmental agencies and rules if the former president wins the November election against Biden.
During an April fundraiser attended by major fossil fuel executives, Trump—who was convicted last week on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records—pledged to swiftly roll back climate regulations if the industry most responsible for the climate emergency forks over $1 billion to support his presidential bid.
"He will sacrifice our planet for the profits of fossil fuel executives. We cannot let that happen."
Politicoreported last month that oil and gas industry lobbyists and lawyers are already in the process of "drawing up ready-to-sign executive orders for Donald Trump aimed at pushing natural gas exports, cutting drilling costs, and increasing offshore oil leases in case he wins a second term."
Meanwhile, the right-wing Project 2025 initiative spearheaded by the Heritage Foundation is pushing "a sweeping battle plan to dismantle federal agencies and public health standards, including vital environmental protections," freelance climate journalist Dana Drugmand wrote last week.
A recent study by Carbon Brief estimated that a second Trump term would unleash an extra 4 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent into the atmosphere, imperiling global efforts to rein in planet-warming emissions.
"He will sacrifice our planet for the profits of fossil fuel executives," Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) warned Tuesday. "We cannot let that happen."
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