Doug Burgum Is Set to Lead the U.S. Company His State Sued at Least 5 Instances — ProPublica

Throughout Doug Burgum’s two phrases as North Dakota governor, the state repeatedly sued the U.S. Division of the Inside, making an attempt to tear up guidelines that govern federal lands in his state and throughout the nation.

Now, Burgum is poised to supervise that very same division as President Donald Trump’s nominee for secretary of the inside. These lawsuits and a bunch of others the state launched in opposition to the federal authorities, a few of that are ongoing, reveal the worldview he’ll carry to a division that touches nearly every aspect of life in the West. Its companies oversee water coverage, function the nationwide parks, lease sources to industries together with oil and ranching, present providers throughout Indian Nation and handle extra land than any particular person or company within the nation.

Throughout his affirmation listening to final week earlier than the Senate Committee on Power and Pure Sources, Burgum portrayed the Inside Division as key to geopolitical energy struggles. On power coverage, he stated that rising persistently obtainable kinds of power manufacturing — particularly nuclear and climate-warming coal, oil and fuel — is a matter of nationwide safety; he claimed that greenhouse fuel emissions may be mitigated with carbon capture technology that’s unproven at scale; and he argued that renewable energy is too highly subsidized and threatens {the electrical} grid.

The committee superior his nomination to the complete Senate on Thursday.

The North Dakota Monitor and ProPublica reviewed the almost 40 lawsuits by which the state was a named plaintiff in opposition to the federal authorities on the time Burgum left the governor’s workplace. As well as, the assessment included pal of the court docket briefs the state filed to the Supreme Court docket and Burgum’s monetary disclosures and public testimony. Lots of the almost 40 fits had been instances North Dakota filed or signed onto with different Republican-led states, though the state introduced a handful independently. 5 of the instances had been lodged in opposition to the Inside Division.

Burgum is a relative newcomer to politics who initially made his fortune when he bought his software program firm. However the instances and disclosures spotlight his deep ties to the oil and fuel business, which have aided his political rise. The information additionally placed on show his sympathy for Western states that chafe at what they imagine is overreach by the Inside Division and that assault federal land administration.

Notably, the litigation features a case geared toward undoing the Interior Department’s hallmark Public Lands Rule that designated the conservation of public lands as a use equal in importance to natural resource exploitation and made smaller modifications comparable to clarifying how the federal government measures panorama well being. Moreover, North Dakota filed a case to roll back the agency’s rule meant to restrict the quantity of methane that oil firms might launch, a apply that wastes a useful useful resource and contributes to local weather change. North Dakota additionally cosigned a short in assist of a controversial, though finally futile, try by Utah to dismantle the broader federal public lands system.

Whereas a few of the instances mirror his celebration’s long-running push to assist the oil and fuel business over different concerns, together with conservation, the litigation over public lands represents a extra excessive view: that federal regulation of a lot of the nation’s land and water must be severely curtailed.

Burgum didn’t reply to requests for remark however made clear lots of his positions in public statements. A spokesperson didn’t reply a query on whether or not Burgum would recuse himself from issues pertaining to the instances his state filed.

Whereas the state’s legal professional common dealt with the lawsuits, Burgum emphatically supported them, urging state lawmakers last spring to totally fund the authorized fights. He additionally cited the litigation throughout his affirmation listening to to guarantee Republican lawmakers that he would improve oil and fuel leasing on public lands.

While speaking to North Dakota lawmakers about federal actions, Burgum characterised the Biden administration’s environmental insurance policies as “misguided guidelines and laws proposed typically by overzealous bureaucrats.” The foundations, he stated, pose “an existential menace to the power and ag sectors, our financial system and our lifestyle.”

Burgum is taken into account much less controversial than another Trump nominees and is anticipated to achieve Senate approval within the days forward. Outdoor recreation groups and a number of tribes publicly supported his nomination, and he was lauded at his affirmation listening to by Republican in addition to some Democratic senators. “If anyone is the choose of the litter, it’s received to be this man,” stated Sen. Jim Justice, a Republican of West Virginia, one other key fossil fuel-producing state.

Conservation teams, in the meantime, decried Burgum as an anti-public lands zealot who does oil firms’ bidding. Amongst them is Michael Carroll, who runs the Wilderness Society’s Bureau of Land Administration marketing campaign.

“For those who’re not a actuality TV star or underneath investigation for ethics violations or misconduct, you’re thought-about a traditional nominee,” Carroll stated of Trump’s picks. However, he continued, that obscures how Burgum and a Republican sweep of the federal authorities current a menace to public lands that’s “as excessive as we’ve seen. Interval. Full cease.”

“Giveaways of Federal Public Lands”

The federal government manages significant portions of the West. Most of that comes via the Inside Division’s Bureau of Land Administration, which oversees an space greater than 5 instances the dimensions of North Dakota. Because of this, public lands administration is a neighborhood flashpoint.

North Dakota has had a very contentious relationship with the federal authorities over its administration of public lands that intermingle with parcels owned by the state or non-public residents.

Lynn Helms was the state’s prime oil regulator for greater than 25 years earlier than retiring final yr, and he witnessed fixed battle over how federal companies wished to handle land within the state. “From the time I took this workplace till the day I walked away, there has all the time been not less than one federal useful resource administration plan or leasing plan underneath growth and in controversy,” he advised the North Dakota Monitor and ProPublica.

Two titanic authorized fights will form the way forward for federal land administration. North Dakota isn’t a named plaintiff within the instances, however the state and Burgum have made recognized their opposition to federal authority in each.

Final August, Utah sued the USA, asking the Supreme Court to rule that the federal authorities’s oversight of 18.5 million acres of public land within the state was unconstitutional. Utah, in its founding documents, forswore any unappropriated public lands to the federal authorities. Nonetheless, authorized students and environmentalists frightened a conservative Supreme Court docket may take away land administration obligations from the federal authorities, which is broadly seen as extra favorable to conservation than Republican-led states are.

“Few points are as basically vital to a State as management of its land,” a coalition that included North Dakota wrote in assist of Utah’s case in a friend of the court brief throughout Burgum’s tenure.

Carroll, of the Wilderness Society, stated that North Dakota siding with Utah was trigger for concern about Burgum main the Inside Division. “Supporting that lawsuit means that he’d be keen to assist large-scale sell-off or giveaways of federal public lands, which, for many of us who stay within the West and are involved about the way forward for these public lands, is a really excessive place,” he stated.

The Supreme Court docket in mid-January declined to take up the case, however Utah pledged to keep fighting. Burgum expressed sympathy for the state throughout his affirmation listening to, agreeing with Sen. Mike Lee, a Utah Republican and champion of the anti-federal motion, who stated that Western states really feel like “floating islands inside a sea of federal land.”

In the meantime, Republicans and business teams even have their sights set on the 118-year-old Antiquities Act, which provides the president authority to create nationwide monuments to guard areas of cultural, historic or scientific significance. Utilizing the act, former President Joe Biden put aside extra land and water for conservation than any previous president.

Burgum’s stance on the act is essential, because the Inside Division usually handles particulars of those monuments, together with the place their borders are drawn.

Throughout his affirmation listening to, Burgum stated the Antiquities Act ought to be used for restricted “Indiana Jones-type archeological protections,” not the sweeping landscapes that latest Democratic presidents have protected. While various tribes supported the use of the Antiquities Act lately, Burgum advised monument designations have harm tribes.

In western North Dakota, tribal representatives, conservation groups and others have pushed for a monument — which they’ve suggested calling Maah Daah Hey National Monument — to protect 140,000 acres thought-about sacred by members of the Mandan, Hidatsa and Arikara Nation and different close by Indigenous cultures. Burgum has expressed concern that such a designation would impede oil and fuel drilling. And whereas he boasted at his affirmation listening to about conservation wins in his house state — comparable to creating the North Dakota Office of Outdoor Recreation — he didn’t mention the monument proposal.

Along with authorized challenges in opposition to the Inside Division, North Dakota is a part of 14 lawsuits in opposition to the Environmental Safety Company and not less than 5 instances that problem environmental or climate-related laws in opposition to different federal companies.

A type of instances, led by Iowa and North Dakota, seeks to roll again updates to Biden-era guidelines in regards to the implementation of the Nationwide Environmental Coverage Act, one of many nation’s core environmental legal guidelines. The authorized battle can have sweeping implications for the federal government’s environmental allowing course of, influencing main development tasks throughout the nation, together with these geared toward constructing infrastructure to fulfill the continued surge in electrical energy demand.

“Blatant Conflicts With the Oil Trade”

In North Dakota’s litigation and Burgum’s document, one thought stands out for a way typically it’s repeated: the opinion that the federal authorities impedes oil and fuel drilling. The state, one of many nation’s prime oil and fuel producers, has persistently pushed for extra drilling on public lands. Burgum has been cheerleading the business for years.

Shortly earlier than finishing his time period in mid-December, Burgum appealed a Bureau of Land Management land-use plan for the state, saying it hindered oil and fuel growth by barring oil, fuel and coal leasing on a number of hundred thousand acres of federal mineral rights. (The company denied Burgum’s enchantment and finalized the plan.)

Below Burgum, North Dakota additionally sued the Bureau of Land Administration over the company’s dealing with of mineral lease gross sales, a system that enables firms to drill for and revenue off publicly owned pure sources and that Helms labeled as “badly damaged.” Within the lawsuit, which is ongoing, the state argued the bureau uncared for its responsibility to host quarterly lease gross sales underneath the Mineral Leasing Act. (A federal decide has ordered the bureau to handle this problem.)

Environmental teams fear that Burgum’s ties to the oil business affect his oversight of fossil fuels. Trump also picked Burgum to run the nascent Nationwide Power Council, which can concentrate on boosting power manufacturing.

His relationship with oil magnate Harold Hamm, the richest man in Oklahoma and a pioneer in hydraulic fracturing and horizontal drilling expertise, has been well-documented.

Hamm pledged $50 million to the Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library, a popular venture for Burgum. When Burgum ran for president earlier than dropping out and supporting Trump, he received nearly $500,000 in marketing campaign contributions from oil and fuel pursuits, about half of which got here through a PAC sponsored by Continental Sources, which Hamm based. Burgum also has acknowledged that he attended an April 2024 assembly at Mar-a-Lago that Hamm helped manage for oil executives to meet with Trump and pledge financial support for his campaign.

Burgum’s financial disclosure reports reveal a personal fortune spread across software companies, real estate ventures and farmland. He also listed royalties from oil and gas leases involving Hess Company, Kodiak Oil & Gasoline Corp. and Continental Sources.

In his required ethics agreement to grow to be secretary of the inside, Burgum dedicated to resign from a number of firms, divest from energy-related holdings and work with company ethics officers to keep away from conflicts, together with these tied to his house state. He additionally testified at his affirmation listening to that he had no excellent conflicts of curiosity.

“Doug Burgum’s blatant conflicts with the oil business forged doubt on his potential to pretty handle our public lands,” stated Tony Carrk, govt director of presidency ethics watchdog Accountable.US.

“He Desires to Lower Tape So That the Advantages Truly Get to the Tribes”

Amongst its many mandates, the Inside Division is tasked with fulfilling the USA’ belief duty to 574 federally acknowledged sovereign tribes. This consists of offering colleges and well being care, representing tribes as they negotiate water rights settlements and liaising between tribes and the federal paperwork.

Burgum has had good relationships with tribal leaders in North Dakota. He partnered with tribes to go tax-sharing agreements, was the primary North Dakota governor to completely show tribal nations’ flags exterior his workplace and created an annual convention to carry collectively leaders of tribal and state governments.

Burgum additionally discovered widespread floor with a neighborhood tribe looking for to broaden oil and fuel drilling. “He desires to chop tape in order that the advantages truly get to the tribes,” stated Chairman Mark Fox of the Mandan, Hidatsa and Arikara Nation, who hopes to see extra wells drilled on the Fort Berthold Reservation.

Fox stated that he stays in contact with the previous governor and that Burgum has requested him for enter on points affecting Indian Nation, though he declined to share specifics.

“The No. 1 precedence in dialogue is: How can we improve our alternative to develop our belief sources of oil and fuel?” Fox stated.

However the state, underneath Burgum’s management, has additionally taken opposing positions on main points to tribes, each inside and out of doors its boundaries.

When Burgum assumed the governorship in December 2016, a monthslong protest was raging against construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline, which transports oil from North Dakota to Illinois. Hundreds of protesters joined with the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, who assert that the pipeline infringes on its tribal sovereignty, disrupts sacred cultural websites and poses an environmental hazard.

Burgum helps the venture.

North Dakota sued the federal government over claims that the Military Corps of Engineers ought to have carried out extra to quell the demonstrations, leaving state and native legislation enforcement and first responders to step in at a price of $38 million. In the course of the case, which went to trial in early 2024 and is but unresolved, Burgum additionally criticized different companies, together with the Inside Division, alleging they sided with protesters.

“It’s harmful in our nation the place politics on both aspect — both celebration, both course, no matter — can one way or the other inject themselves in a allowing course of,” Burgum stated, according to court records.

The distinction between Burgum’s views and that of many tribes across the nation is very stark on conservation.

The state became a co-defendant in December in a separate lawsuit the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe introduced in opposition to the Military Corps of Engineers calling for the pipeline to be shuttered. Events to the litigation have filed briefs, and the case is ongoing.

And the state and a few tribes are at odds over the Bureau of Land Administration’s Public Lands Rule, which clarified the function of a land designation known as “areas of essential environmental concern.” A central goal of the designation is to guard “uncommon or delicate archeological sources and non secular or cultural sources vital to Native People.” Various tribes support the rule, but North Dakota is suing to halt it.

Regardless of these disagreements, tribal leaders in North Dakota stated they respect Burgum, and several credited him with rebuilding relations. Standing Rock Sioux Tribe Chairwoman Janet Alkire stated Burgum has a powerful grasp of points dealing with Indian Nation, whereas Fox stated Burgum has been keen to work with tribal leaders.

As Burgum takes the reins on the Inside Division, Monte Mills, director of the Native American Legislation Heart on the College of Washington Faculty of Legislation, stated he’s watching how Burgum will work with tribes that favor conservation over pure useful resource extraction.

It stays to be seen if protecting the federal authorities’s commitments to Indian Nation are a precedence for Burgum, Mills stated, or whether or not tribal points are “solely actually taken up the place they align with different priorities of the administration.”