President Joe Biden’s administration is “punishing the West” with policies slowing mineral extraction on federal lands, Sen. John Barrasso, R-Wyoming, said at a Senate confirmation hearing Thursday for Doug Burgum, President-elect Donald Trump’s pick for secretary of the Interior.
“There’s a long list of things that I believe must be fixed, and I’m going to ask for your help,” Barrasso told Burgum, noting Wyoming is America’s leading state in coal production.
Burgum, the former governor of North Dakota, faced questions about his positions on various energy sources during the hearing Thursday held by the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources.
Burgum agreed with Barrasso that resources in Wyoming’s Powder River Basin are important for bolstering America’s energy supply. But Burgum, a rancher and hunter, also promised strong environmental stewardship if he is confirmed.
Wyoming’s senior senator said Wyoming needs someone at the helm of the Interior who won’t ignore the people who live in the Cowboy State.
“The wellbeing of my home state of Wyoming depends on strong leadership at the Department of the Interior,” he said, adding that federal land needs to be managed “in a way that works for the people that actually live on the land.
“In the last four years, that has been a big problem. … The will of the people who depend on the land, live on the land, take care of the land, was ignored the last four years.”
‘We Hate Windmills’
Confirmation appears certain by the committee and the full Senate, both controlled by Republicans. Even some Democrats on the panel including Sen. John Hickenlooper of Colorado commended Burgum, though some Democrats complained the nominee to lead the Interior Department is not enthusiastic enough about wind and solar power.
“We all know [Trump} wants to ‘drill, baby, drill,’” said Sen. Mazie Hirono, D-Hawaii.
Burgum did say he supports all kinds of energy production, but he called wind and solar “intermittent” sources. He added that technologies such as carbon capture make fossil fuels cleaner than before, and he emphasized the need for reliable electricity.
Burgum, who made a fortune as a software entrepreneur, said electricity demand stands to skyrocket from data centers processing artificial intelligence.
He criticized tax incentives for electric vehicles.
Sen. Jim Risch, R-Idaho, certainly had no qualms about Burgum’s lukewarm attitude toward wind power.
“We hate windmills in Idaho,” Risch said.
A Lot Of Land
The Interior Department includes the Bureau of Land Management, which owns 245 million surface acres — a 10th of America’s land base — with the vast majority in Western states including 18 million acres in Wyoming.
The BLM balances recreational uses such as camping and off-roading with lease programs for livestock grazing and mineral extraction, including coal, oil and gas, uranium and more. About 700 million subsurface acres are controlled by the BLM.
The Interior Department also includes the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, which issues leases for offshore oil drilling. The department includes the National Park Service, and Burgum vowed to protect “every single inch” of the national parks.
Burgum enjoys widespread backing among Native Americans, including all five federally recognized tribes in his home state of North Dakota. The Interior Department works closely with indigenous people through its Bureau of Indian Affairs.
The country’s national forests — there are eight in Wyoming — would not fall under Burgum’s purview. The U.S. Forest Service, which balances logging with recreational and other uses in the millions of acres of those forests, falls under the Department of Agriculture.
What About Rollins?
Trump’s pick for agriculture secretary, Brooke Rollins, is set to go before the Senate Agriculture Committee on Jan. 23.
Burgum’s emphasis on ample and affordable electricity echoed comments the previous day by Chris Wright, Trump’s pick for energy secretary, in the same committee weighing Burgum's nomination. Another nominee with implications for the energy sector — Lee Zeldin to run the Environmental Protection Agency — underwent questioning Thursday in the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works.
At Burgum’s hearing, Barrasso, Risch and Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, said the Biden administration has largely dismissed their opinions on land-use policy in their respective states.
The Interior Department “must work with states and local communities to manage our resources in a way that works for the people that actually live on the land,” Barrasso said. “And over the last four years that has been a big problem as we’ve seen an administration that seems to just be punishing the West.”
