Defenders Slams Trump Interior Pick Burgum

President-elect Trump made known last night at Mar-a-Lago that he intends to nominate North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum to lead the Department of Interior, giving authority of the nation’s public lands, wildlife and natural resources to a leading advocate of oil and gas drilling.

Defenders of Wildlife staunchly opposes this nomination and issued the following statement from Robert Dewey, Vice President of Government Relations:

“The President-elect has selected a leading “drill baby, drill” oil advocate to oversee the management and conservation of federal lands in the U.S. Trump has made clear his intentions to open federal lands to increased oil, gas and coal production, threatening vital wildlife habitat and setting back our nation’s climate goals, and Burgum will be his hand to enact this agenda.”

Background:
After the President, the Secretary of the Interior has more power than anyone else in government over the nation's public lands and natural resources. The Secretary of the Interior is steward over a quarter of the nation's land area, and 300 million acres on the outer-continental shelf. The secretary is required by many laws to carefully balance the grazing, timber and mining interests with fish and wildlife conservation, watershed protection, wilderness and recreational needs.

The Secretary of the Interior oversees the U.S. Department of the Interior, responsible for the management and conservation of federal lands in the United States. These include national wildlife refuges, national parks and other public lands, including those leased for oil and gas extraction.

Gov. Burgum has close ties to oil and gas executives, including Continental Resources founder Harold Hamm, who invested $250 million into a proposed pipeline project in North Dakota. The two have been working on Trump’s transition and energy portfolio.

In 2024, Burgum praised the Supreme Court for overturning the 40-year-old Chevron deference doctrine, which deferred to the expertise of agencies on how to interpret ambiguous language in laws pertaining to their work and now gives power to federal judges to determine how to interpret policy implementation.