President-elect Donald Trump announced Friday that North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum will lead the newly created National Energy Council while also serving as Secretary of the Interior.
The council, Trump wrote in a statement, “will consist of all departments and agencies involved in authorizing, producing, generating, distributing, regulating and transporting ALL forms of American energy.”
Trump, 78, revealed that Burgum, 68, would be his choice for Interior secretary during remarks at a Mar-a-Lago party Thursday night.
“He’s going to lead the Department of the Interior, and he’s going to be fantastic,” the president-elect told North Dakotan supporters who unsuccessfully challenged Trump for the 2024 Republican nomination.
Burgum’s short-lived presidential campaign focused heavily on his energy experience governing North Dakota and his years as the successful owner of Great Plains Software, which he sold to Microsoft in 2001 for more than $1 billion.
Trump has indicated that Burgum was shortlisted as the Republican Party’s vice presidential candidate before Sen. J.D. Vance (R-Ohio) was selected.
Burgum has long been considered the favorite to lead the Energy Department, with Interior being floated as a secondary possibility.
There was also speculation that Trump would create a special “energy czar” position for Burgum, similar to the “border czar” role held by former acting Immigration and Customs Enforcement Director Tom Homan.
Trump has pledged to cut U.S. energy prices in half within his first year in the White House. He also said he would instruct workers to “drill, baby, drill” and embrace hydraulic fracking to reduce America’s dependence on foreign energy.
“This Council will oversee the path to America’s energy dominance by cutting red tape, increasing private sector investment across all sectors of the economy, and focusing on INNOVATION rather than longstanding, but totally unnecessary regulation,” Trump said in his Friday statement.
“With American energy dominance, we will reduce inflation, win the AI arms race with China (and others), and expand American diplomatic power to end wars around the world.”
