Former North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum (R), President-elect Donald Trump’s choose to steer the huge Division of the Inside, invoked President Theodore Roosevelt in pitching himself for the job of managing lots of of tens of millions of acres of federal lands and waters.
“In our time, President Trump’s vitality dominance could be America’s huge stick that can be leveraged to attain historic prosperity and world peace,” Burgum stated throughout his affirmation listening to Thursday, referencing the twenty sixth president’s quote from a 1900 letter to “converse softly and carry an enormous stick.”
It was a web page from the playbook of Trump’s first Inside Division chief, Ryan Zinke, who pledged — and failed — to leave a conservation legacy that rivaled that of Roosevelt.
If confirmed to steer the Inside Division, Burgum will play a key position in finishing up Trump’s plan to spice up fossil gas drilling and different extraction throughout federal lands, in addition to to dismantle environmental laws. The billionaire software program entrepreneur and two-term governor touted Trump’s so-called “vitality dominance” imaginative and prescient throughout his opening assertion Thursday earlier than the Senate Vitality and Pure Assets Committee.
“The American individuals have clearly positioned their confidence in President Trump to attain vitality dominance,” Burgum stated. “That’s the muse of American prosperity, affordability for American households and unequalled nationwide safety.”
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Burgum stated the US produces vitality “cleaner, smarter and safer than wherever on the planet,” and that the Trump administration would prioritize business innovation over regulation.
“When vitality manufacturing is restricted in America, it doesn’t scale back demand, It simply shifts manufacturing to nations like Russia and Iran, whose autocratic leaders not solely don’t care in any respect concerning the setting, however they use their revenues from vitality gross sales to fund wars towards us and our allies,” Burgum stated. “President Trump’s vitality dominance imaginative and prescient will finish these wars overseas, will make life extra inexpensive for each household in America by driving down inflation. And President Trump will obtain these objectives whereas championing clear air, clear water and defending our lovely lands.”
Burgum obtained a heat welcome from either side of the political aisle and largely escaped hard-hitting questions from committee Democrats. Although Democrats pressed the Cupboard nominee on quite a lot of points, together with local weather change, renewable vitality and the safety of nationwide monuments, they didn’t ask about his private monetary ties to grease tycoon and GOP mega-donor Harold Hamm or his state’s assist of a Utah lawsuit aimed toward wresting management of tens of millions of acres of public land from the federal authorities.
On nationwide monuments, Burgum signaled that the Trump administration is more likely to again goal websites protected below the Antiquities Act. The 1906 legislation was signed by Roosevelt and provides presidents unilateral authority to designate nationwide monuments on federal lands. Eighteen presidents have used the Antiquities Act to designate 167 monuments.
“Its authentic intention was actually to guard, because it says, antiquities, areas like, I might say, Indiana Jones-type archeological protections,” Burgum stated.
Trump and different Republicans have accused President Joe Biden and different current presidents of abusing the legislation’s language, which states monuments must be “confined to the smallest space suitable with correct care and administration.” It’s an argument that conveniently ignores the truth that many early monuments, together with ones Roosevelt created, spanned hundreds of thousands of acres.
Throughout his first time period in workplace, Trump shrank the size of two sweeping nationwide monuments in Utah — the biggest rollback of nationwide monuments in U.S. historical past — following a controversial monument review that Zinke led.
Burgum instructed Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah), chair of the committee, that he seems ahead to working with him on the difficulty of nationwide monuments. Lee has decried monument designations in his state and has an extended historical past of opposing federal management of public lands within the West.
Throughout the listening to, Burgum sympathized with Republican senators who voiced frustration with what they view because the federal authorities’s use of guidelines, land designations and wildlife administration plans to limit vitality exploration and different growth on federal lands.
One in all extra shocking moments got here when Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.) requested Burgum if he would proceed supporting out of doors recreation through funding for the decades-old Land and Water Conservation Fund, or LWCF, which makes use of offshore fossil gas income to ascertain and shield parks, wildlife refuges, forests and wildlife habitat. Throughout his first time period, Trump’s administration repeatedly tried to gut funding for LWCF.
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Burgum, a hunter and out of doors fanatic, stated he totally helps boosting out of doors recreation alternatives, noting it’s good for each human well being and the financial system. However when pressed about LWCF, Burgum indicated he hadn’t heard of the favored program.
“A few of these acronyms I’m much less aware of, so I’d sit up for studying extra about them,” he stated.
