Burgum Makes Corporate Profits Priority Number One at Department of Interior
WASHINGTON — In his first move as Secretary of the Interior, billionaire Doug Burgum, signed a series of secretarial orders intended to open up publicly owned lands and waters across America for the fossil fuel and mining industries to exploit them for corporate profit. The order begins the process of repealing important Biden administration regulations impacting drilling and kicks off a process likely to lead to an attack on places designated as national monuments under the Biden administration. This end result is likely to be a process that is likely to lead to a wholesale giveaway of public lands to oil and gas drillers and uranium mining corporations. In response, Alan Zibel, research director at Public Citizen, issued the following statement:
“Burgum’s vision of American energy ‘dominance’ continues the MAGA movement’s essential lie about U.S. energy policy. America’s energy ‘potential’ has already been unlocked due to a 15-year fracking boom that pushed production—and exports to foreign countries—to record levels.
“Oil and gas companies’ profits would be threatened if too much supply hits the market, so fossil fuel interests will ignore the Trump administration’s attempt to goose supply. At the same time, the oil and gas industry will push for the repeal of Biden-era environmental laws and fiscal reforms that imposed some measure of accountability on this reckless planet-destroying industry.
“Burgum’s Interior Department appears inclined to shrink or sell off public lands to fossil fuel interests and mining companies, while making expansion of renewable energy more difficult. This isn’t technology neutral ‘energy abundance,’ it’s a blatant giveaway to the fossil fuel interests who were generous benefactors to Trump’s campaign.”
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