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On Thursday, the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee is expected to hold a confirmation hearing for Doug Burgum, President-elect Trump’s pick to lead the Interior department. Unfortunately, senators may go into the hearing without financial disclosure and FBI background check information necessary to make an informed decision about Burgum’s nomination. Senator Mike Lee of Utah, the chairman of the committee, scheduled Burgum’s hearing even though the committee hadn’t received Burgum’s paperwork as of Tuesday morning.
This matters because Burgum, a former software executive and governor of North Dakota, is a multi-millionaire, and is closely connected with, and has a track record of going to great lengths to help his billionaire benefactor, Harold Hamm. Center for Western Priorities Deputy Director Aaron Weiss gets into the details of why this is concerning in a new Westwise blog post.
Hamm is the founder of oil and gas company Continental Resources. As governor, Burgum disclosed he has a land deal with Continental that includes oil wells on 200 acres of his land, with Burgum’s family getting 19 percent of the revenue from the oil that is drilled on his land. In March 2024 alone, the wells produced over 5,000 barrels of oil and thousands of cubic feet of natural gas. Meanwhile, Burgum has so far refused to reveal how much money Continental paid up front for the lease, or how much he’s made in royalties since the wells started producing.
Burgum also partnered with Hamm to hold a fundraiser for President-elect Donald Trump at Mar-a-Lago with oil and gas executives at which it was reported that Trump asked the oil executives to raise $1 billion for his campaign, and if they did, he would roll back environmental protections at the behest of the oil industry. Trump reportedly emphasized this would have been a deal given that the roll backs he offered would likely be worth $110 billion, mostly from tax loopholes that President Joe Biden pledged to close in his second term, and that President-elect Trump wants to keep. Burgum has admitted he was in the room at Mar-a-Lago, but denied that Trump offered a quid-pro-quo to the oil executives.
New polling: Utahns, Arizonans support keeping their state's national monuments
Utahns across the political spectrum want the state’s national monuments to stay protected, according to new polling commissioned by the Grand Canyon Trust. The poll surveyed 500 registered voters across the state in December about their views on protecting public lands, finding that 71 percent of Utah voters support Bears Ears National Monument, and 74 percent support Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument. The survey also demonstrated that 75 percent of respondents support the president’s ability to designate national monuments using the Antiquities Act of 1906. The results fly in the face of Governor Spencer Cox and other state leaders who have worked to roll back protections for the two monuments since 2021 through a lawsuit and proposed legislation attacking the Antiquities Act.
A separate poll of Arizona voters conducted for the Grand Canyon Trust found strong support for presidential monument designations, including the Baaj Nwaavjo I’tah Kukveni–Ancestral Footprints of the Grand Canyon National Monument designated in 2023 by President Joe Biden that protects nearly 1 million acres around Grand Canyon National Park.
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It’s an easy win for Utah’s politicians and for the incoming administration just to leave these monuments as they are.”
