EGN NEWS DESK
Walleye desserts, peach cobbler and wine offered by North Dakota’s prime vitality lobbying group had been on the menu in May when Doug Burgum, then the governor, invited oil and gasoline executives to his official residence.
The visitor of honor: Harold Hamm, the billionaire founding father of Continental Resources, one of many main unbiased oil firms within the nation.
He was a frequent presence at Mr. Burgum’s political occasions. Mr. Burgum, in flip, spoke at banquets honoring Mr. Hamm, wrote a glowing blurb for his memoir and likened him in an official deal with to former President Theodore Roosevelt.
Now, Mr. Burgum is President-elect Donald J. Trump’s alternative to guide the Interior Department and coordinate vitality coverage throughout authorities companies. As he goes earlier than the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee on Thursday, Mr. Burgum’s relationships with oil and gasoline executives like Mr. Hamm are anticipated to boost questions. Democrats and activists mentioned they fear in regards to the quantity of affect the trade could have on insurance policies.
“Governor Burgum’s shut friendship and monetary relationship with billionaire oil and gasoline government Harold Hamm presents a transparent battle of curiosity for the nominee slated to supervise the federal oil and gasoline leasing program,” mentioned Tony Carrk, the chief director of Accountable.US, a watchdog group.
Mr. Trump campaigned on a promise to “drill, child, drill.” He has mentioned he needs to make it simpler for vitality firms to take advantage of pure sources, construct new oil and gasoline pipelines and export terminals and finish the event of wind vitality, which competes with fossil fuels.
During the election marketing campaign final 12 months, Mr. Burgum, 68, acted as a liaison between Mr. Trump and fossil gas executives who poured greater than $75 million into his bid to retake the White House. He has mentioned that as inside secretary, he intends to realize “vitality dominance.”
The United States is already producing and exporting file quantities of oil and gasoline.
The Interior Department has a finances of about $18 billion and is answerable for managing hundreds of thousands of acres of public lands and waters, defending wildlife, sustaining nationwide parks and monuments and overseeing most tribal packages.
A multimillionaire former Microsoft government, Mr. Burgum was elected governor of North Dakota 2016, operating as an outsider in opposition to what he referred to as the “good previous boy” Republican Party institution. Once he received, oil firms together with Continental Resources turned the highest funder of his inaugural celebrations, The Associated Press reported on the time. He in the end served two phrases, leaving workplace in December.
In current years the bonds between Mr. Burgum and oil executives like Mr. Hamm have grown, in keeping with public conferences and different paperwork, a few of which had been obtained by Fieldnotes, an oil and gasoline analysis group, and offered to The New York Times.
The hyperlinks aren’t solely political. Mr. Burgum’s household leases farmland to Continental Resources and Hess Corp., one other oil and gasoline exploration firm, to pump oil and gasoline, in keeping with enterprise information and a federal monetary disclosure report first reported by CNBC. Mr. Burgum has made between $15,000 and $50,000 in royalties from the lease, the report reveals.
Two nonprofit information organizations, The Dakota Monitor and ProPublica, reported final 12 months that Mr. Burgum had voted some 20 instances as a member of the state Industrial Commission, which conducts oversight of vitality regulation, on issues that benefited each Continental and Hess.
Asked final 12 months in regards to the lease deal, Michael Nowatzki, the governor’s spokesman on the time, mentioned it had preceded Mr. Burgum’s taking workplace and added that “tens of 1000’s of households and mineral house owners have comparable preparations.” Mr. Burgum mentioned in his monetary disclosure reviews, made public on Tuesday, that he would quit his holdings within the household leases if confirmed.
Continental didn’t reply to a request for remark.
According to the disclosures, Mr. Burgum earned greater than $2 million final 12 months from household companies in addition to investments in actual property and software program firms.
Mark S. Jendrysik, a professor of political science on the University of North Dakota, famous that half the state’s finances comes from vitality and mentioned it was commonplace for officers to have shut ties to the oil and gasoline trade.
“It’s such a small state, it’s onerous to not have what individuals understand as conflicts of curiosity,” Mr. Jendrysik mentioned. North Dakota, he mentioned, “is a one-party state, and the road between private and non-private sectors is pretty blurry.”
Mr. Burgum, he mentioned, was well-liked and perceived as a average who took pretty customary Republican positions in opposition to authorities regulation, significantly within the vitality sector.
In 2023, Mr. Burgum mounted a long-shot bid for the presidency. He quickly dropped out and endorsed Mr. Trump, however alongside the way in which Mr. Hamm’s Continental Resources donated $250,000.
Rob Lockwood, an adviser to Mr. Burgum, dismissed considerations that Mr. Burgum’s ties to Mr. Hamm or different trade leaders would current a battle to the position of inside secretary.
“American households can rely on Doug Burgum, an avid out of doors recreationist, to ship on President Trump’s imaginative and prescient for vitality dominance, to drive down inflation and strengthen our nationwide safety,” Mr. Lockwood mentioned in an announcement.
