Energy czar might be a fitting title for North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum after being named Friday by President-elect Donald Trump as his choice to run the Interior Department. His selection could very well be celebrated in the nation’s oil and gas industry.
Trump also announced he will create a National Energy Council to make the U.S. “energy domincance” around the globe. Burgum will also chair the National Energy Council and have a seat on the National Security Council. In his new position, Burgum will literally become an “energy czar” and monitor all executive branch agencies dealing with energy permitting, production, generation, distribution, regulation and transportation.
The name of Oklahoma U.S. Sen. Markwayne Mullin had been bandied about as a possible appointee as Interior Secretary. But earlier in the week when he was interviewed on Maria in the Mornings on Fox Business News, Mullin said he and Trump had “zero conversations” about such a move.
Over the past four years, the Biden administration has put new restrictions on energy permitting on public lands and as a result, critics argued the U.S. lost its status as being energy dominant in the world. Trump accused the administration and what he labeled the “radical left” of carrying out a war on American energy using billions in taxpayer dollars to support green energy and fight oil and gas development.
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