For Interior Secretary, a post that oversees the management and conservation of federal lands in the U.S., Trump announced Doug Burgum, governor of North Dakota – the third largest oil producing state in the country – as his choice. Burgum will also lead a newly created National Energy Council, which will focus on increasing U.S. energy supplies by better coordinating federal agencies and adding capacity to the electricity grid.
Deregulation and speeding up permitting were key policies for Trump during his first term, and Frank Mariage, a mining-focused partner at law firm Fasken, says Trump’s picks show he considers that unfinished business.
Trump 2.0
“When Trump 1.0 came in, he put in through executive orders a number of guidelines to start streamlining the permitting process. Most of those were repealed when Biden came in,” Mariage says.
“So Trump is going to be looking to obviously put…
