Trump’s pick for secretary of the Interior Department is Doug Burgum. Here’s what to know

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Who: Doug Burgum

Nominated for: Secretary of the Interior

You might know him from: The 2024 Republican presidential primary. The former governor of North Dakota ran on his experience as a successful businessman before dropping out of the primary and becoming a vocal supporter of former President Donald Trump, then the front-runner, landing on the VP shortlist.

More about Burgum:

• He sold his software company to Microsoft in 2001 for $1.1 billion. 
• He is a big booster of oil and gas drilling. 
• He pledged for North Dakota to be carbon neutral by 2030, largely through carbon capture and storage. 

Position: The Department of the Interior oversees public and federal lands and their natural resources, the Bureau of Indian Affairs, the National Park Service and the Fish and Wildlife Service.

If confirmed as secretary of the interior, Doug Burgum would become a key player in implementing one of the Trump administration’s overarching goals: “Drill, baby, drill.”

The Department of the Interior manages roughly one-fifth of the lands and waters of the United States, giving Burgum — the former governor of an oil-rich state — significant leverage to increase domestic oil and gas production, which is already at an all-time high. But the massive department also oversees national parks and monuments, endangered species protections and relations with federally recognized Native American tribes.

During the first Trump administration, the Department of the Interior cut regulations to make it easier to drill on federal land, significantly weakened the power and scope of the Endangered Species Act and shrunk two national monuments. Deb Haaland, secretary of the Interior during the Biden administration, reversed many of these actions and focused on boosting conservation and renewable energy.

Burgum is expected to reverse course again. Burgum’s pro-drilling stance is fairly well established, and as Trump’s proposed head of the newly proposed National Energy Council — a body that will oversee regulatory processes across government agencies — he’d have considerable power to push fossil fuel extraction.

His views on conservation issues are murkier.

His confirmation hearing, set for Thursday at 10 a.m. EST, could provide a clearer sense of his priorities.

Before jumping into politics for his 2016 governor run, Burgum worked as a software executive. In 2001, he sold his company, Great Plains Software, to Microsoft for $1.1 billion. As governor, he presided over record oil production in North Dakota, though most of this occurred on private, not public, lands. He also pledged to make North Dakota carbon neutral by 2030, largely through carbon capture and storage, not a dramatic increase in renewables.

Burgum will likely face questions from senators about privatizing public land for drilling. Federal lands currently account for roughly one-quarter of the United States’ greenhouse gas emissions, and dramatically boosting fossil fuel production there could increase climate-warming gases.

On the conservation front, Burgum could be asked about whether he’d support weakening the Endangered Species Act, shrinking or eliminating national monuments established by the Biden administration, and drilling in sensitive areas, like the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska.

He is expected to be confirmed.