(Reuters) – President-elect Donald Trump’s pick for secretary of the interior, Doug Burgum, will tell lawmakers during his nomination hearing on Thursday that he will vigorously pursue Trump’s goals of maximizing energy production from America’s public lands and waters, calling it key to national security.
The comments signal a coming sharp turn in policy after President Joe Biden attempted for years to restrict oil and gas drilling by reducing federal lease auctions and banning future development in vast areas of federal offshore waters as part of a strategy to fight climate change.
“Today, America produces energy cleaner, smarter and safer than anywhere in the world. When energy production is restricted in America, it doesn’t reduce demand, it just shifts production to countries like Russia, Venezuela, and Iran – whose autocratic leaders don’t care about the environment,” Burgum will tell lawmakers, according to his prepared remarks.
He will say maximizing energy output can lower consumer prices, and can be done while ensuring clean air and water.
The Interior Department oversees millions of acres of lands and offshore waters stretching from the Arctic to the Gulf of Mexico, and leases out parcels for drilling operations that now produce around a quarter of the nation’s oil and gas output.
The United States is already the world’s top oil and gas producer thanks to a years-long drilling boom mainly on private lands in Texas and New Mexico fueled by improved technology and strong world demand since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Burgum, who served as governor of North Dakota – another major oil producer state – is also being considered to head a new national energy council to coordinate policies to boost U.S. energy production after Trump takes office on Jan. 20.
North Dakota ranks third among U.S. states, after Texas and New Mexico, in crude oil reserves and production, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.
(Reporting by Richard Valdmanis; Editing by Lincoln Feast.)
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