On election night, as Donald Trump sat at his Mar-a-Lago resort, two of the most powerful people in American oil were just a few feet away from North Dakota’s governor. Doug Burgum and shale king Harold Hamm were toasting their victory.
They have been working hard on Republican campaigns for months. Mr. Burgum briefly ran for the White House and supported Mr. Trump at rallies, while Mr. Hamm offered advice on energy and money.
The two men attended a dinner in April hosted by Hamm and attended by U.S. oil executives, during which President Trump asked for $1 billion in donations and pledged to support President Joe Biden’s climate change initiative if he regained the White House. He promised to water down the policy.
Their loyalty was rewarded.
On Friday, President Trump named Burgum as Interior Secretary and “Energy Czar” and announced a wide range of measures to increase U.S. oil and gas production, including opening federal lands to frackers and loosening agency regulations. gave him authority. On Saturday, the president-elect nominated Chris Wright, a shale executive whom Hamm had promoted for months, to be energy secretary.
“I’ve been in this industry for a long time, so I have a great Rolodex of friends who work in energy. As I know, some of the best recommendations for Cabinet positions to unlock American prosperity again. That’s not surprising,” Hamm told the Financial Times.
At the top of the new administration’s agenda are plans to withdraw the U.S. from the Paris climate change agreement, allow drillers to enter wildlife refuges in Alaska and release fossil fuels, according to people familiar with the plan. says.
Pursuing what President Trump calls “energy supremacy” will make the United States, already the world’s largest oil and gas producer, a powerful rival to Russia, Saudi Arabia and the other major oil exporters in the OPEC+ cartel. Probably.
Environmental activists have condemned President Trump’s “shameful” plan to hand over power to industries responsible for the global climate crisis.
But fossil fuel veterans from West Texas to North Dakota are elated that oil companies, rather than climate think tanks closer to the Biden administration, will be shaping President Trump’s energy policy.
“This is a breath of fresh air for us in the domestic energy business,” said Kirk Edwards, CEO of Latigo Petroleum, an independent oil producer in Odessa, Texas.
“They understand what we’re doing,” said Steve Pruett, CEO of neighboring Midland-based Elevation Resources and president of the Independent Petroleum Association of America.
While Biden appointed a climate czar to put the issue at the center of government-wide decision-making, Burgum’s role will be similar, with the exception of fossil fuels.
Mr. Pruett was more direct. The “fanaticism that makes climate change the greatest existential threat known to humanity” will be gone, he said. “These are mature businesspeople who understand the intersection of energy, economics and climate.”
The third most important figure in the energy industry is Lee Zeldin, the former New York congressman whom President Trump chose to head the Environmental Protection Agency.
The agency has played a pivotal role in Biden’s efforts to crack down on methane emissions and other pollutants. All of these regulations are now up for grabs as President Trump pushes for radical deregulation policies. Mr. Zeldin is little known in the industry, but is seen as unlikely to go against his intentions.
President Trump’s advisers expect him to carry out his agenda quickly.
Karla Sands, a policy advisor at the right-wing group America First Policy Institute, said President Trump’s efforts to end Biden’s environmental policies, including environmental policies such as car emissions regulations and the promotion of electric vehicles, EPA said it will be important.
“They’re going to do it through the EPA and the Department of Energy,” said Sands, who was ambassador to Denmark at the time Trump broached the idea of buying Greenland.
Few people have influenced Trump more than Hamm on energy issues. A decade ago, Mr. Hamm also led efforts to persuade the Obama administration to expand U.S. oil exports.
In an interview with the FT before the election, Mr Hamm ruled out he would work in the administration, but said Mr Trump was “looking to me for advice and help”. He recommended Mr. Burgum and Mr. Wright for the top job.
At a Mar-a-Lago dinner in April, Mr. Hamm gave Mr. Wright a platform to speak, catapulting the Colorado-based executive into the running for Trump’s Cabinet.
The oilfield services director is known for his down-to-earth demeanor, regularly hosting tailgate parties for Liberty Energy employees at NFL Denver Broncos games and handing out beer late into the night. are.
Burgum, who made his fortune in software and real estate, has been governor of North Dakota since 2016, the state where Hams Continental pried open the Bakken oil fields and sparked the shale oil revolution.
Burgum’s family still leases 200 acres to Continental for oil and gas drilling. First reported by CNBC.
In an interview with the FT at a conference hosted by Ham in Oklahoma last year, Burgum accused Biden of “empowering dictators” by “killing” the US’s own oil and gas sector.
Wright, who founded Liberty in 2011, will also serve on Burkum’s new National Energy Council, whose members will cut out bureaucracy and force other government agencies to do the same.
David Banks, an energy adviser in the Trump administration, said a “wildcatter” mentality is coming to the center of the U.S. government at the expense of the big oil lobby, which is accustomed to Washington power.
“It’s not the big trade associations or the big energy multinationals that have the most influence over the Trump administration, but rather the small businesses, the independents in the middle of the country, the wildcatters,” he said. .
Climate change activists are preparing for a four-year campaign to blunt the new administration’s policies – with Mr Wright in particular criticizing the “myopic focus on climate change” and saying “there is no climate crisis”. states.
Hannah Saggau, senior climate finance campaigner at Stand.earth, said Wright was “gaslighting” Americans already living with the effects of global warming.
“What we need is leaders who understand and act on climate science, not willfully deny it,” she said.
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