Doug Burgum, President-elect Donald J. Trump’s choice to lead the Interior Department, said on Thursday he viewed America’s public lands and waters as part of the country’s financial “balance sheet,” with potentially trillions of dollars worth of oil, gas and minerals waiting to be extracted beneath the surface.
Mr. Burgum, who served two terms as governor of North Dakota, insisted that the United States was in the midst of an energy crisis, even as it is producing more oil than any nation at any time in history and is the world’s leading exporter of liquefied natural gas. He said if confirmed he intended to realize Mr. Trump’s vision of “energy dominance,” a phrase that is shorthand for more fossil fuel production, and called that the “foundation of American prosperity.”
Testifying before the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, Mr. Burgum also assured lawmakers he cared about conservation, but declared that any curbs on energy production posed a national security threat to the United States.
“When energy production is restricted in America it doesn’t reduce demand,” Mr. Burgum said. “It just shifts productions to countries like Russia and Iran, whose autocratic leaders not don’t care at all about the environment, but they use their revenues from energy sales to fund wars against us and our allies.”
Democrats tried and failed to get Mr. Burgum to commit to supporting the continued development of renewable energy sources like wind, and none pressed him on how he would address climate change. Emissions from the burning of fossil fuels produced on federal lands and waters account for nearly 22 percent of U.S. greenhouse gases.
“I believe that climate change is a global phenomenon, for sure,” Mr. Burgum said when Senator Angus King, an independent from Maine, asked if he considered climate change a problem.
Republicans expressed relief that Mr. Burgum would reverse the policies of the Biden administration, which has sought to reduce oil and gas development as well as mining. In recent weeks, the Biden administration has barred drilling in more than 265 million acres of the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans, the eastern Gulf of Mexico and the Northern Bering Sea.
Mr. Burgum accused the Biden administration of holding “unpredictable and disruptive” oil and gas lease sales designed to discourage drilling and said that, under the Trump administration, such auctions would be “regular, predictable and at a level that allows us to maintain energy production in our country.”
And while he allowed that some of the nearly 500 million acres of American lands and of the two billion acres of offshore waters should be protected because they contain “precious stuff,” most might be mined or drilled to help raise revenues and bring down the national debt.
“The rest of it, this is America’s balance sheet,” said Mr. Burgum, a multimillionaire former Microsoft executive.
“If we were a company, they would look at us and say, ‘Wow, you are really restricting your balance sheet,’” he said. Mr. Burgum also called for a federal assessment to value the oil, gas, minerals, timber and other resources in the United States and its waters. He said he had spoken with Scott Bessent, Mr. Trump’s pick to lead the Treasury Department, about the idea.
“Understanding that number, I think, is key,” Mr. Burgum said,
The Interior Department has a budget of about $18 billion and is responsible for managing millions of acres of public lands and waters, protecting wildlife, maintaining national parks and monuments and overseeing most tribal programs.
Mr. Burgum served two terms as governor of North Dakota before stepping down in December. If confirmed to lead the Interior Department, he is expected to play a key role in implementing Mr. Trump’s “drill, baby, drill” agenda, which includes making it easier for energy companies to exploit natural resources, build new oil and gas pipelines and export terminals and end the development of wind energy, which competes with fossil fuels.
At the same time, Mr. Burgum described himself as someone who cares about public lands.
Mr. Burgum called outdoor recreation “a passion of mine as someone who has spent my life as an avid outdoorsman” and noted that, as governor, he created an office of outdoor recreation to preserve access to hunting and fishing.
Mr. Burgum pledged to “follow the law” but also dismissed a question from Senator Mazie Hirono, Democrat of Hawaii, about whether he would follow orders if Mr. Trump wanted to drill in Bears Ears National Monument in Utah. Mr. Burgum said he “has not heard anything about” drilling there.
Mr. Burgum has longstanding ties to oil and gas executives including Harold Hamm, the billionaire founder of Continental Resources, one of the leading independent oil companies in the country.
Mr. Hamm has been a frequent presence at Mr. Burgum’s political events. Mr. Burgum, in turn, has spoken at banquets honoring Mr. Hamm, wrote a glowing blurb for his memoir and likened him in an official address to former President Theodore Roosevelt.
During the election campaign last year, Mr. Burgum, 68, acted as a liaison between Mr. Trump and fossil fuel executives who poured more than $75 million into his bid to retake the White House. In recent years bonds between Mr. Burgum and oil executives like Mr. Hamm have grown, according to public meetings and other documents, some of which were obtained by Fieldnotes, an oil and gas research group, and provided to The New York Times.
The links aren’t only political. Mr. Burgum’s family leases farmland to Continental Resources and Hess Corporation, another oil and gas exploration company, to pump oil and gas, according to business records and a federal financial disclosure report first reported by CNBC. Mr. Burgum has made $15,000 to $50,000 in royalties from the lease, the report shows.
Two nonprofit news organizations, The Dakota Monitor and ProPublica, reported last year that Mr. Burgum had voted some 20 times as a member of the state Industrial Commission, which conducts oversight of energy regulation, on matters that benefited both Continental and Hess.
Watchdog groups have questioned whether Mr. Burgum’s ties to the oil industry pose a conflict of interest. No lawmakers raised the issue on Thursday.
