On Thursday, the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee is expected to hold a confirmation hearing for Doug Burgum, President-elect Trump’s pick to lead the Interior department. Interior oversees more than 500 million acres of American public land, including national parks, wildlife refuges, and multiple-use lands. Burgum, a former software executive and governor of North Dakota, is a multi-millionaire, but hardly the richest person in Trump’s orbit. Burgum, like Trump, is closely connected with people who are far richer than him — and he has a track record of going to great lengths to help his billionaire benefactor, Harold Hamm.
Unfortunately, senators may go into the hearing without the information they need to make an informed decision about Burgum’s nomination. Sen. Mike Lee of Utah, the chairman of the committee, scheduled Burgum’s hearing even though the committee hadn’t received Burgum’s paperwork as of Tuesday morning. Far from a formality, every nominee for a Senate-confirmed position undergoes an FBI background check, submits financial disclosure forms, and gets approval from government ethics officials.
In Burgum’s case, his financial and ethics situation should be of utmost concern to the Senate. Sen. Martin Heinrich of New Mexico, the top Democrat on the committee, is already calling foul over Burgum’s missing disclosures. Here’s why that’s so important.
Burgum and Hamm: Rich and richer
What we do know about Burgum so far raises major concerns about his ability to lead the Interior department in a way that does not result in Burgum further enriching himself — he’s worth at least $100 million today, according to Forbes.
When he was governor of North Dakota, Burgum disclosed that he has a land deal with Continental Resources, an oil and gas company founded by an even wealthier man, Harold Hamm. Hamm is several times richer than Burgum — an estimated $18.5 billion as of 2022, making him the 63rd wealthiest person in the world. This is a trend across the Trump administration — millionaires like Burgum doing work for billionaires rather than the American people and the public lands and resources that belong to all taxpayers.
(This is true all the way up to the White House, where President-elect Trump, who is only a billionaire on paper thanks to his meme stock, couldn’t post a bond large enough to appeal the $454 million fraud judgment against him. Thirty companies that underwrite appeal bonds didn’t think Trump’s assets could cover a verdict that large. In practice, Trump is a multi-millionaire at best. This helps to explain Trump’s willingness to do favors for actual billionaires like Elon Musk and Peter Thiel.)
Doug Burgum. Photo by Gage Skidmore, Wikimedia Commons.
Burgum’s staff refused to answer questions from CNBC about the governor’s deal with Continental Resources, which started in 2009. Continental’s oil wells on 200 acres of Burgum’s land started producing in 2011, with Burgum’s family getting 19 percent of the revenue from oil drilled on his land. In March 2024 alone, the wells produced over 5,000 barrels of oil and thousands of cubic feet of natural gas. Burgum has so far refused to reveal how much money Continental paid up front for the lease, or how much he’s made in royalties since the wells started producing.
We do know that in just one year from late 2022 into 2023, more than a decade into the deal, he made up to $50,000 in royalties — and oil wells are most productive early in their lifespan.
Burgum’s relationship with Hamm goes far beyond the land deal. After ending his own short-lived presidential campaign, Burgum partnered with Hamm to hold an oil-and-gas fundraiser for Donald Trump at Mar-a-Lago. The Washington Post and New York Times reported that Trump asked the oil executives gathered by Burgum and Hamm to raise $1 billion for his campaign, and if they did, he would roll back environmental protections at the behest of the oil industry. Representatives from ExxonMobil and the American Petroleum Institute were reportedly in the room. The Post reported that Trump said giving him $1 billion would be a “deal,” because of the money the oil industry would save if he returned to the White House. The Guardian reported that the “deal” Trump offered would likely be worth $110 billion, mostly from tax loopholes that President Joe Biden pledged to close in his second term, and that Trump wants to keep.
Burgum admitted he was in the room at Mar-a-Lago, but denied that Trump offered a quid-pro-quo to the oil executives.
“What would be the No. 1 thing that President Trump could do on Day 1? It’s stop the hostile attack against all American energy, and I mean all,” Burgum told the executives, according to the Post. “Whether it’s baseload electricity, whether it’s oil, whether it’s gas, whether it’s ethanol, there is an attack on liquid fuels.”
Without a full look at Doug Burgum’s financial situation, it’s impossible to know how many ways Burgum could enrich himself, Hamm, or any of the oil and gas executives they invited to Mar-a-Lago last year. Without Burgum’s disclosures, it’s impossible to know whether he could enrich himself or his fellow housing developers by trying to sell off pristine national public land for development and trophy homes, which is a priority of Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee Chairman Mike Lee.
A long-standing partnership
Hamm and Burgum were close even before the Mar-a-Lago dinner. In 2023, Burgum wrote a glowing review of Hamm’s memoir, praising his “ingenuity, determination, and pure grit,” adding that “Harold’s global impact has been immeasurable and is an inspiring story worthy of sharing.” That same year, during his state of the state address, Burgum compared Hamm to former President Teddy Roosevelt, saying that Hamm’s “hard work and determination has changed North Dakota and our nation.”
Harold Hamm speaks at the 2016 Republican National Convention. Video still via PBS Newshour.
Of course, Hamm’s relationship with Burgum isn’t only built on sycophantic flattery — it’s transactional. Hamm’s company is a major investor in a 2,000-mile pipeline project that would collect carbon dioxide emissions from ethanol plants across the Midwest and store them underground in North Dakota, and Burgum has supported the pipeline despite opposition from stakeholders in the state and across the Midwest.
The common thread in opposition to the project is the concern that developers could use eminent domain to force landowners to make way for the pipeline. While campaigning in Iowa, Burgum claimed that land owners could “just say no and they’ll move it to your neighbor and your neighbor can get the big check.” But a farmer in North Dakota blasted Burgum for not standing up for private property rights.
“It’s been very disheartening to see how our governor has not held true to what the promises were for the farming and ranching community,” Troy Coons told CNN in July.
Burgum’s administration backed a bill in 2019 that gave oil and gas companies the right to use “pore space” under the land to store CO2 and prevented land owners from demanding compensation for it. North Dakota’s Supreme Court later overturned the law.
North Dakota’s public service commission ended up approving the pipeline permit in November, but didn’t resolve the question of eminent domain, which leaves land owners at risk of having to fight the Summit pipeline in court if the developers try to seize land using eminent domain. The state’s Industrial Commission, led by Burgum, voted unanimously in December to approve permits for Summit’s three proposed storage sites.
Hamm continues to return the favors to Burgum. Hamm donated $250,000 to Burgum’s “Best of America PAC” in 2023 and contributed to both of Burgum’s gubernatorial runs. Hamm even donated $50 million to Burgum’s pet project, a planned Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library in North Dakota.
What it means this week
As Interior secretary, and as the potential chairman of President-elect Trump’s amorphous National Energy Dominance Council, Burgum would have enormous sway over the future of Hamm’s Summit pipeline as well as any future pipelines that cross federal or Tribal land. He would oversee the agency that permits wind, solar, and geothermal energy on public land, even though Trump has already vowed that “no new windmills” will be built in America during his presidency. He would be in a position to encourage more exports of American methane overseas through liquefied natural gas terminals — a development that would inevitably raise home heating and electricity prices for Americans even as Trump has vowed to cut utility prices in half.
In December, Trump promised “fully expedited” permits and environmental reviews for any company willing to spend $1 billion or more on new projects. Burgum would be in a position to make good on that promise if he instructed civil servants in the Interior department to ignore environmental laws and issue those permits without proper reviews.
Whenever his financial paperwork arrives, senators will undoubtedly have a long list of questions about how or even if Doug Burgum could serve the country rather than his billionaire friends in the oil industry. Much like President Trump’s last Interior secretary, the “swamp creature” David Bernhardt, Burgum’s list of conflicts could end up so long he has to carry them with him at all times. The only way to find out is if senators insist that Burgum follow the highest ethical standards — even if that means he’s recused from so many decisions that there’s nothing for him to do as Interior secretary.