Trump fills out energy/env. team, names ND Gov. Burgum, others

As President-elect Donald Trump fills in the blanks of his incoming Administration, some of the earliest appointments have come in the areas of energy and the environment.

Most prominent among the names put forward is neighboring North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum as Secretary of the Interior.

Burgum will also chair a newly-created, inter-agency National Energy Council. As Politico reports:

In his new position, Burgum will lead a new National Energy Council, which will give the North Dakota governor a seat on the National Security Council and “oversee the path to U.S. ENERGY DOMINANCE,” Trump said in a statement.

The position will oversee the “drill, baby, drill’ effort that Trump made a centerpiece of his presidential campaign that sharply criticized President Joe Biden’s climate policies as stifling energy output and forcing allies to rely on U.S. rivals for energy.

I’m guessing that the emphasis was in the original.

On Saturday, Trump announced Liberty Energy CEO Chris Wright to be the incoming Secretary of Energy. The Washington Post was not happy:

President-elect Donald Trump announced on Saturday that he has selected Chris Wright, the head of fracking company Liberty Energy and a skeptic of mainstream climate science, to lead the Department of Energy and to serve on a new National Energy Council.

In his announcement, Trump credited Wright as “one of the pioneers who helped launch the American Shale Revolution,” adding that “as Secretary of Energy, Chris will be a key leader, driving innovation, cutting red tape.”

Perhaps as important going forward is Wright’s history as a board member of “Oklo Inc. (NYSE: OKLO), a next-generation small modular nuclear reactor company,” as described in Wright’s official corporate bio. 

Rounding out the Trump team, Trump had previously picked former Congressman Lee Zeldin (R-NY) to head the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Zeldin had represented parts of Long Island in the U.S. Congress for eight years from 2015 to 2023. Zeldin ran for Governor of New York in 2022 and lost a closer-than-expected race to the incumbent Democrat.

Another media institution not pleased with Trump’s picks is the Minnesota Star Tribune. Editorial writer Jill Burgum wrote this on Twitter (X) regarding the Doug Burgum selection:

The Star Tribune published an Associated Press article on the Wright nomination for Energy, noting that:

Wright has been one of the industry’s loudest voices against efforts to fight climate change, and could give fossil fuels a boost, including quick action to end a year-long pause on natural gas export approvals by the Biden administration.

On the Zeldin EPA pick, the Star Tribune quickly rolled out a commentary from a guest commentator, under the matter-of-fact headline:

Of course Trump picked someone unqualified to run the EPA

In contrast, the Wall Street Journal look upon these picks much more favorably:

A Trump U.S. Energy Renaissance.

We still have a long way to go. Across the federal government, across all subject areas, there are more than 4,000 Presidential appointees, with more than 1,200 requiring Senate confirmation.

As they say, “personnel is policy.”