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Doug Burgum

Offshore wind and a whale.
Spotlight

Offshore Wind Opponents Zero in on Their Next Two Targets

Will Sunrise Wind and Revolution Wind get the Trump treatment?

Sparks

Trump Tries to Kill New York’s Empire Wind Project

For the first time, his administration targets an offshore wind project already under construction.

Spotlight

Anti-Wind Activists Have a Big Ask for the Big Man

The Trump administration is now being lobbied to nix offshore wind projects already under construction.

Politics

The Era of Trump’s Energy Czars Has Begun

Chris Wright and Doug Burgum started their reign this week by amplifying the president and beating back Biden-era policies.

Burgum and Musk

Washington Goes Wild, Wyoming Pipelines Win

And more of the week’s top policy news around renewable energy.

Russ Vought Makes a Power Play for Trump’s Energy Policy

Russ Vought Makes a Power Play for Trump’s Energy Policy

The president’s early executive orders give the once-and-future head of the Office of Management and Budget far-reaching powers.

Doug Burgum and Donald Trump.
<p>Heatmap Illustration/Getty Images</p>

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.

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Climate

Inside the Mind of Energy Nominee Chris Wright

His intellectual influences include longtime climate action skeptics — and Bill Gates’ favorite author.

Chris Wright.
<p>Heatmap Illustration/Getty Images</p>

Donald Trump’s nominee for Secretary of Energy, Chris Wright, is a nerd — and he’ll tell you about it. “I’m Chris Wright, and my short bio is, I started out as a science geek, I transitioned to a tech nerd, and then I’ve been an energy entrepreneur my whole life,” he told energy journalist Robert Bryce on the Power Hungry podcast in 2020. “In addition to an energy nerd, I’ve been a climate nerd for quite some time,” he said in a talk hosted by Veriten, the energy consulting firm in 2023.

This is a far cry from Trump’s first Energy Secretary, the former Texas Governor Rick Perry, who famously failed to remember on the Republican primary debate stage the third of the three agencies he sought to eliminate (it was the Department of Energy) and who reportedly didn’t know that the Energy Department’s responsibilities — and budget — then lay heavily with maintaining the country’s nuclear stockpile.

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