The Senate on Thursday confirmed the nomination of former North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum to be Interior secretary by a vote of 79-18.
Burgum will be tasked with supporting President Donald Trump’s “drill, baby, drill” agenda as the head of a department that manages over 70 percent of all federal public lands. Trump has said Burgum will also serve on a National Energy Council, to be created by executive order, whose mission Burgum described as reducing “red tape and bureaucratic redundancy between agencies” to increase domestic energy production.
As Interior secretary, Burgum will lead a department that houses the Bureau of Land Management, Fish and Wildlife Service, National Park Service, Bureau of Indian Affairs and Bureau of Indian Education.
