On Thursday, Governor Doug Burgum (R-N.D.) became the latest of President Donald Trump’s Cabinet nominees to be confirmed by the U.S. Senate.
As Breitbart reports, the now-former governor was confirmed by a largely bipartisan vote, with 79 voting in favor and only 18 voting against. He succeeds Deb Haaland, the last Interior Secretary of the former Biden Administration, and is the 55th person to serve in the role.
Burgum was previously approved by the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, with 18 members voting for him and only two voting against him: Senators Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) and Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii).
“I cannot support these nominees who will carry out Trump’s policies that throw out America’s greatest advantages,” Wyden said in a statement justifying his opposition.
Secretary Burgum expressed his full support for President Trump’s energy agenda, which seeks to rapidly increase domestic energy production in order to lessen, and ultimately eliminate, dependence on foreign sources of energy.
“We live in a time of tremendous abundance, and we can access that abundance by prioritizing innovation over regulation,” said Burgum during his confirmation hearing.
“We are in an energy crisis in our country, and the first place is actually related to electricity,” he continued. “Electricity is at the brink; our grid is at a point where it could go completely unstable. We could be just months away from having skyrocketing prices for Americans.”
Burgum previously worked as the president of the Fargo, North Dakota-based software company Great Plains Software, which he eventually sold to Microsoft for $1.1 billion. He won the 2016 gubernatorial election and was re-elected in 2020. He briefly ran for president as a Republican in the 2024 election but withdrew before the start of the primaries and endorsed Trump.
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