North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum was nominated to lead the Department of Interior and also serve as the chairman of a new energy council.
President-elect Donald J. Trump announced a proposed new council to implement his far-reaching energy policies to be led by North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum, his pick to lead the Department of the Interior.
Burgum will chair “the newly formed, and very important, National Energy Council, which will consist of all Departments and Agencies involved in the permitting, production, generation, distribution, regulation, transportation, of ALL forms of American Energy,” Trump
announced in a Nov. 15 statement from his transition team.
“This Council will oversee the path to U.S. ENERGY DOMINANCE by cutting red tape, enhancing private sector investments across all sectors of the Economy, and by focusing on INNOVATION over longstanding, but totally unnecessary, regulation.”
His announcement stressed the importance of his energy agenda to facilitating American dominance of artificial intelligence as well as peacemaking through an expansion of U.S. power.
Burgum responded on social media platform X minutes after the choice was announced.
“I’m deeply grateful to President [Trump] for this amazing opportunity to serve the American people and achieve ENERGY DOMINANCE!” he wrote.
As chair of the new council, Burgum will also have a seat on the White House National Security Council, Trump said.
The president-elect also highlighted his plans for the electrical grid by “dramatically increasing baseload power.” This, he said, will cut electrical bills for Americans and businesses and stave off blackouts.
On the campaign trail, Trump repeatedly said that restoring American energy independence was crucial to improving the country’s prestige on the world stage.
“President Trump’s unleashing of American energy allowed the U.S. to stand up to dictators without any concern for their energy markets,” a statement from the incoming president’s Agenda 47
reads.
Trump has yet to announce his pick for energy secretary, another role critical to advancing his energy-related proposals.
Burgum’s elevation to a cabinet-level role was publicly foreshadowed several months ago when he lost out to now-Vice President-elect JD Vance in the competition to be Trump’s running mate.
He said that at the time Trump referred to him as “Mr. Secretary” on a phone call outlining the decision.
Burgum, like Trump, is among the wealthiest American politicians. Born in North Dakota and equipped with an MBA from Stanford University, he stewarded the growth of Great Plains Software, a firm that was eventually sold to Microsoft. The entrepreneur went on to work for that company.
He entered the presidential race alongside numerous other Republicans, participating in multiple Trump-free debates before dropping out several weeks prior to the Iowa caucus.
Trump made what appeared to be an impromptu announcement that the North Dakotan would serve as his interior secretary at Mar-a-Lago on Nov. 14.
The news of Burgum’s interior secretary role has been lauded by some analysts, including Alec Stapp of the non-partisan Institute for Progress.
On X, Stapp described Burgum as a “YIMBY abundance guy.” “YIMBY” stands for “yes in my backyard,” a stance defined by support for lower barriers to housing and transportation growth. Public Citizen, a progressive nonprofit founded by Ralph Nader, was more critical of the pick.
“Burgum is poised to prioritize the American Petroleum Institute’s call to exploit America’s federal land and offshore waters for expanded oil and gas drilling at the expense of public health and the climate,” Public Citizen’s Tyler Slocum said in a statement on the choice.
Richard Goldberg of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies wrote on X that the latest news shows Trump “formally recognizing that our domestic energy policies are fundamentally linked to our national security strategy.” 
