Did You Think That Doug Burgum Would Be The Normal Person In Trump’s Clown Car Cabinet? Think Again

Señor Trumpanzee just announced that, in addition to nominating North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum to be interior secretary, he would appoint him as the chairman of a new National Energy Council overseeing American energy policy. Trump has made repeated promises to slash energy costs in half as a bid to fight inflation so presumably that would be part of Burgum’s job description. At the same time, Trump has promised the oil and gas billionaires who helped fund his campaign a bonanza. Nd after Burgum withdrew as a candidate and endorsed Trump, he took on the role of liaison between Trump and those billionaires.

Around that time, Lisa Friedman reported for the NY Times that “Burgum has articulated a sophisticated policy approach that can at times seem environmentally conscious, but in fact is designed to benefit oil, gas and coal, the fossil fuels that are driving climate change. ‘It’s a tale of two Dougs,’ said Dustin Gawrylow, a conservative political commentator in North Dakota. Burgum set a goal in 2021 that North Dakota would stop adding carbon dioxide to the atmosphere by 2030, becoming ‘carbon neutral.’ Carbon dioxide from burning oil, gas and coal is a major driver of global warming... Burgum has aggressively argued that the country needs more oil and gas and has accused President Biden of ‘demonizing’ the fossil fuel industry by encouraging the growth of wind, solar and other nonpolluting energy.”

“Right now he is taking the party line of the energy industry,” Gawrylow said. He chalked up the shift to the “national exposure” Governor Burgum has received since his presidential run.

Others in the state made similar claims. “In the last three years he’s clearly been shifting,” said Scott Skokos, the executive director of the Dakota Resource Council, an environmental group in North Dakota. Skokos and others said they had witnessed Governor Burgum taking a sharp tack to the right on energy issues and echoing the oil industry’s attacks on the Biden administration after he entered his second term in office and prepared for a presidential run.

“I don’t think it’s so much that he changed his views as he’s an opportunist,” Skokos said.

Governor Burgum’s office did not make him available for an interview. His spokesman, Mike Nowatzki, said in a statement that he has remained consistent in his positions. “The governor has always believed that the oil and gas industry is a critical component of an all-of-the-above energy strategy,” Nowatzki said.

In April, Governor Burgum helped to bring oil and gas executives to Mar-a-Lago… for a now-infamous dinner during which Trump suggested that they raise $1 billion for his campaign. Trump told the executives they would save far more than that in tax breaks and legal fees after he repealed Biden’s climate agenda, according to several people who were present and who requested anonymity to discuss a private event.

One of the other organizers of the Mar-a-Lago event was Harold Hamm, the billionaire founder and chairman of Continental Resources, one of the country’s largest independent oil companies and the largest leaseholder in the Bakken oil field that straddles North Dakota and Montana.

Governor Burgum and Hamm were already well acquainted.

Hamm has contributed both to Governor Burgum’s campaigns for governor as well as to his presidential bid. His company has also invested $250 million in a proposed $5.2 billion pipeline project in North Dakota.

The project is a 2,000-mile network of several pipelines that would collect carbon emissions from 57 ethanol plants scattered across Iowa, Minnesota, Nebraska and South Dakota and store them in an underground facility in a deep rock formation in central North Dakota.

The governor has said he views the pipeline as a tool to help North Dakota achieve his goal of carbon neutrality, which relies almost entirely on expensive and nascent carbon capture technology.

The pipeline project could remove up to 18 million tons of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere each year and store it underground, according to Summit Carbon Solutions, the developer. That’s the equivalent of removing nearly four million cars from the road, according to the company’s website. 

It would also mean about $1.5 billion annually in federal tax credits for Summit Carbon Solutions and the project’s investors, including Hamm, thanks to the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act, which includes tax credits of $85 per ton for carbon dioxide captured from industrial facilities and stored underground.

Summit Carbon Solutions’ parent company, Summit Agriculture Group, is run by Bruce Rastetter, who has donated to Trump and the Republican Party for years.

Governor Burgum has said North Dakota’s geology is uniquely suited to store carbon dioxide in the deep rock below ground and that he wants the state to become a national leader in carbon storage. He celebrated a decision last year by the U.S. Department of Energy to give $350 million to a North Dakota utility to capture millions of metric tons of carbon dioxide from a coal-fired power plant and bury it underground.

But the pipeline project, which is still in the process of obtaining state permits, has drawn opposition from a collection of odd bedfellows.

Climate activists are opposed in large part because they say capturing and storing carbon emissions hands a lifeline to the fossil fuel industry at a time when scientists say nations must stop burning oil, gas and coal to avoid the worst effects of climate change. They also note that oil companies often take carbon dioxide that’s been captured and inject it into depleted oil fields to produce more oil.

Farmers in North Dakota are alarmed that the state may use eminent domain to bury the project’s many pipelines under their land. Conservatives, including those who dismiss climate science, have called the project a boondoggle.

“They say we need it to reduce emissions, but it’s the worst of the worst corporate enrichment,” said Gawrylow.

Truth be told, as governor of North Dakota, Burgum promoted policies that incentivized oil and gas development and opposed environmental protections. He has consistently criticized climate initiatives like the Inflation Reduction Act, framing them as detrimental to the economy while favoring innovation in traditional energy sectors over regulation. And at the same time he was soliciting and receiving financial backing from energy executives, including billionaire Jeffery Hildebrand, founder of the oil and gas company Hilcorp. His gubernatorial administration always positioned itself as friendly to Big Oil, emphasizing an “all-of-the-above” energy strategy that supported continued reliance on fossil fuels. Although he announced a carbon-neutrality goal for North Dakota by 2030, his approach avoids mandates and instead promotes methods benefiting traditional energy producers.

This alignment with petroleum interests makes Burgum a strong ally of the oil industry, suggesting his nomination confirmation will further embed fossil fuel priorities in national energy policy, exactly what Trump promised the oil billionaires. 

His appointment is a perfect demonstration of regulatory capture— where industry-friendly leadership shapes policy to benefit corporations rather than the public interest. His carbon neutrality rhetoric, though seemingly progressive, focuses on voluntary innovation, which tends to favor fossil fuel companies by avoiding mandates that might compel significant emissions reductions. In other words, he’s a bullshit artist. Given the National Energy Council’s likely influence over U.S. energy strategy, Burgum’s appointment will absolutely lead to policies that prioritize short-term industry profits over long-term sustainability and energy transition goals. This aligns with broader Trump administration tendencies to roll back environmental regulations and favor fossil fuels.