The Senate confirmed former North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum as Interior secretary Thursday in a 79-18 vote, with the majority of Senate Democrats joining every Republican in the chamber.
Burgum, a one-time candidate for the 2024 GOP presidential nomination-turned-visible Trump campaign surrogate, has been among the president’s least controversial nominees. He advanced out of the Senate Energy Committee last week in a nearly unanimous vote, with only Sens. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) and Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii) voting against the nomination.
Wyden, the mastermind of the renewable energy tax credits within the Inflation Reduction Act, cited President Trump’s opposition to the cuts in opposing both Burgum and Energy secretary nominee Chris Wright, who is also unlikely to face significant Senate opposition.
“I cannot support these nominees who will carry out Trump’s policies that throw out America’s greatest advantages,” Wyden said last week.
As Interior secretary, Burgum will oversee environmental policy and the nation’s public lands. Trump has vowed on the campaign trail and in his early actions as president to expand oil and gas development and roll back environmental protections enacted under the Biden administration. In remarks at his confirmation hearing, the former governor signaled support for those priorities, saying, “We live in a time of tremendous abundance, and we can access that abundance by prioritizing innovation over regulation.”
The vote comes the day after the Senate confirmed Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin in a 56-42 vote.
Unlike Trump, Burgum has acknowledged the existence of climate change and as governor set ambitious targets of making North Dakota carbon-neutral. However, in his confirmation hearing he also suggested he would fast-track natural gas and coal development on federal lands to power artificial intelligence data centers.
Despite coal’s high levels of greenhouse gas emissions, Burgum suggested this could be offset by the use of carbon capture, a new and largely unproven technology that was also central to Burgum’s plan to make his state carbon neutral.
