Doug Burgum is, by all accounts, a normie. Compared to some of the other picks for incoming President Trump’s cabinet, the former North Dakota governor is well respected by his political colleagues; even many of the Democrats on the Energy and Natural Resources Committee seemed chummy with the former software executive during his hearing on Thursday, praising his support of the outdoor recreation economy and his conservation efforts in his state. As if to confirm the low stakes of the hearing, Burgum used his closing remarks not as a final pitch of his qualifications — but to invite his interrogators to a Fourth of July party at the Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library.
That isn’t to say that the hearing doesn’t have consequences — or revelations about what can be expected from the all-but-certain-to-be-confirmed Interior secretary and future head of Trump’s National Energy Council. For many in the renewables space — particularly those in the wind industry — there was little in the way of reassurances that Burgum would temper his boss’ opposition to “windmills.” Additionally, the future Interior secretary dodged questions seeking reassurance about his commitment to protecting federal lands.
Below are some of the biggest takeaways from Thursday’s confirmation hearing.
1. “Baseload” might be code for “no renewables”
Burgum referenced concerns about the “baseload” of the grid more than 15 times during the hearing, primarily as a way to oppose the buildout of renewable energy. “We’re short of electricity in this country, and we have to make sure that we have a balance,” he told Senator Catherine Cortez Masto, a Nevada Democrat, citing a standard Republican talking point about how the grid needs safeguards because “the sun doesn’t always shine and the wind doesn’t always blow.” When pressured about how intermittent energy sources are used in combination with storage, he added that we’re still “a few years out” from such technologies and warned that in the meantime, there would be “more and more brownouts and blackouts because we aren’t going to have the balance in the grid.”
“I don’t want the word ‘baseload’ to be code for no renewables,” Angus King, the Independent Senator from Maine, later followed up. Burgum protested against that characterization — “It’s not for any political reasons that I distinguish [between intermittent and baseload], it’s just because of the physics of the grid” — but King wasn’t satisfied. “In your case, in North Dakota, 35% of your electricity comes from wind power,” King said. “I presume that your grid works well?”
Burgum stumbled in his answer: “It’s super stressed, as it is around the country,” he said. (In fact, transmission bottlenecks seem to be the bigger issue in the state.) He went on to say that renewables plus storage equals a baseload at a “much higher cost” than traditional energy sources like oil and gas.
“It sounds like no more renewables,” King rejoined. “I don’t think that’s a sustainable path for this country, and it’s certainly not a way of meeting the challenge of climate change.”
One carbon-free source of electricity emerged as a winner of the baseload fight, however: nuclear power. “I’m glad to hear you talk about baseload,” Republican Senator James Risch of Idaho told Burgum, “because when you’re talking about nuclear, you’re talking about baseload.” Burgum also called solar and geothermal “big opportunities” in Utah.
2. Public land advocates are right to be worried
Ahead of Thursday’s confirmation hearing, Danielle Murray, the founder of the Public Lands Center, issued a statement arguing that if Burgum did not “[reject] any and all attempts to sell-off or give away our nation’s public lands,” it would be “disqualifying.”
She and other public land advocates are not likely to be satisfied with the answers they heard, however. Burgum responded positively to an opening question from Republican Senator Mike Lee of Utah about restricting the size of National Monuments, noting that “a state like yours … already has over 60% of its land in public lands.” The Energy and Natural Resources Committee’s ranking member, Democratic Senator Martin Heinrich of New Mexico, followed up on that point, asking Burgum how he plans to “stay true to our conservation history” given the mounting attempts by Lee and his colleagues to “somehow, in a wholesale way, divest of our public lands.”
Burgum remained noncommittal: “I think there is certainly the opportunity for us to find that balance going forward,” he said again.
3. Coal is back, baby
Burgum promised senators from Montana and Wyoming that he opposed a “blanket approach of trying to block” new coal development. “We have an opportunity to decarbonize, to produce clean coal, and with that produce reliable baseload for this country,” he said.
Why is that so important? “Without baseload, we’re going to lose the AI arms race to China,” Burgum said.
4. No reassurances about wind here
Wind was another hot topic during Burgum’s confirmation hearing. King pointed out that North Dakota is a major wind-producing state, and asked if the Interior nominee would talk to President Trump about “the fact that wind has its virtues and can contribute significantly” to America’s energy supply.
Burgum was resistant. If wind projects “make sense, and they’re already in law, then they’ll continue,” he allowed. “I think President Trump has been very clear in his statements that he’s concerned about the significant amount of tax incentives that have gone towards some forms of energy that have helped exacerbate this imbalance that we’re seeing right now.”
Risch celebrated Burgum’s skepticism of wind, rooting for the end of the Lava Ridge wind farm, which Heatmap’s Jael Holzman has reported Trump may kill on day one. “My good friend Senator King and I have different views on windmills — and bless you for taking the windmills, you can have them all,” Risch offered during his allotted time. “We don’t want them in Idaho. We hate windmills in Idaho.” (In 2023, wind accounted for about 15% of Idaho’s electricity generation.)
5. Nobody likes bears
But if there was something Republicans on the Energy and Natural Resources Committee hated even more than wind, it was bears. Senator Daines of Montana specifically requested Burgum’s commitment to delisting grizzlies from the Endangered Species List, and he got what he was looking for. “I’m with you,” Burgum said. “We should be celebrating when species come off the endangered species list, as opposed to fighting every way we can to try to keep them on that list.”
Risch was also excited about this promise. “We don’t want grizzly bears [in Idaho],” he said. “They kill people. You know, the federal government already gave us wolves.”
Grizzlies weren’t the only bears on the chopping block. Republican Senator Lisa Murkowski of Alaska slammed the Biden administration’s Interior for not finishing its revised incidental take regulations for North Slope oil and gas activities — that is, the gas industry’s exemption to the Marine Mammal Protection Act of 1972 which otherwise prohibits the harassing, hunting, capturing, or killing of protected animals, including polar bears. “I need your commitment that you’ll work with Alaskans, particularly the Inupiat people up there, in the North Slope Borough, on basically all things polar bear,” Murkowski said.
“We’ll be happy to do that,” Burgum confirmed.
