April 29, 2025 — When he fought for votes in North Dakota’s Republican gubernatorial primary in 2016, tech executive Doug Burgum did not have the financial backing of the state’s powerful oil and gas lobby.
Burgum — who is now Interior secretary — labeled that money a conflict of interest.
As governor, Burgum sought to push North Dakota to be carbon-neutral by 2030. He stressed “the importance of an all-of-the-above energy policy” when then-Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm visited the state in 2021. And he chaired a state commission that approved North Dakota’s first injection well for the geologic storage of carbon dioxide.
But as a member of President Donald Trump’s Cabinet, Burgum has taken a sharply different tack.
Last week, the Interior Department unveiled a plan to speed up the development of domestic energy and critical minerals. The new emergency permitting procedures don’t apply to renewable sources such as wind and solar, reflecting Trump’s priorities and his Jan. 20 energy “emergency” executive order. Carbon capture and storage technology, or CCS, was also left out.
The new policy arrived days after Interior moved to halt construction on the Empire Wind project off the coast of New York, arguing it was approved “without sufficient analysis.” That has left observers wondering what’s next from Burgum.