June 26, 2024 - U.S. Interior Secretary Doug Burgum told a coalition of Western governors on Monday that their states are critical for helping deliver President Donald Trump’s “energy dominance” agenda.

During a keynote address as part of the Western Governors’ Association conference in Santa Fe, Burgum touched on the need for more energy development to help secure the country’s interests and drive innovation. 

The former North Dakota governor, who was chosen by Trump to lead the federal department that oversees one-tenth of the country’s land, has already moved to promote more energy exploration and productio on federal lands and waters. 

In his address to Western state governors, he said energy abundance and environmental stewardship aren’t mutually exclusive. 

“You can have a beautiful state, you can have amazing national parks, national historic sites, national monuments, you can work collaboratively with the tribes, and you can still contribute mightily to the nation’s economy and the nation’s security,” Burgum said. “… And so much of that’s happening in these Western states.”

He criticized some of the energy policies of the past few decades, particularly under former President Joe Biden, which he said have made the U.S. more dependent on foreign countries for resources like minerals. 

“Where are most of the critical minerals in this country and the rare earth minerals? Well, most of them are in the West,” Burgum said, “and in our country, we’ve killed mining in this industry.” 

The Trump administration is looking to roll back some of the conservation efforts under Biden that removed wide swaths of public land from oil drilling and mining. 

Republicans and the oil and gas industry have argued that those efforts went against the Interior Department’s multiple-use mandate, which allows for various, simultaneous activities like mining, drilling, recreation and conservation. Conservationists have largely opposed those efforts, seeing them as a direct threat to the environment. 

Burgum said part of the “divisiveness in our country is getting people to believe that everything is scarce and if we do A, we can’t do B, or if we do B, we can’t do A.” He instead pushed for strategies that rely on many energy sources to create reliable, low-cost energy. 

Governors speak on public lands sale

Burgum did not mention attempts to sell off public lands under Congressional Republicans’ domestic policy bill, which lawmakers are advancing to enact much of Trump’s agenda. 

The highly contentious proposal by Utah Sen. Mike Lee would have made as much as 250 million acres of federally-owned land across the West eligible for sale, but the effort was blocked earlier this week after it was found to have violated Senate rules. 

Republicans are trying to pass their sweeping bill using the reconciliation process, which allows them to fast-track the legislation and avoid a 60-vote threshold in the Senate. The Senate’s parliamentarian, however, said the public lands provision isn’t eligible under the rules of reconciliation. 

Lee has vowed to push forward a narrower version of his lands sale proposal in the hopes that it can pass through the reconciliation process. 

During a press conference prior to Burgum’s keynote address, some governors weighed in on the idea. 

Colorado Gov. Jared Polis, flanked by other Western state leaders, answers questions during a press conference kicking off the Western Governors’ Association meeting in Santa Fe on Monday, June 23, 2025.

Photo: Ellen Jaskol/Western Governors’ Association

Colorado Gov. Jared Polis, a Democrat, said public lands are a “big part of the quality of life in Colorado.” He said Lee’s original proposal would have been a “devastating blow to the quality of life, as well as to our economy, if areas were fenced off and the public was denied access.”

Polis has supported targeted uses of federal land for community needs, like affordable housing. He was in favor of a project in Summit County where the county government leased an administrative site from the U.S. Forest Service to build workforce housing units, though that project has since stalled. 

He said he is open to working with the federal government to identify areas of federally-owned land where development might make sense. 

New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham, also a Democrat, made similar comments, saying, “Selling (public lands) to the private sector without a process, without putting New Mexicans first, is, at least for me as a governor, going to be problematic.”

Wyoming Gov. Mark Gordon, a Republican, said public lands decisions should be made at a local level. 

He added there should be a “very robust process that does not say ‘we’re going to wholesale get rid of our public lands.'”