North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum speaks to the Republican National Convention, July 17, 2024. (Screen Capture/CSPAN)

From the Daily Caller News Foundation

By Adam Pack

Senate Overwhelmingly Confirms Doug Burgum As Trump’s Interior Secretary

The Senate confirmed former North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum in a bipartisan fashion to lead President Donald Trump’s Department of Interior Thursday evening.

Senators overwhelmingly approved Burgum’s nomination 79 to 18. Three senators did not vote. Under the prior administration, we went from a nation of energy dominance to a nation of energy dependence.

America is an energy superpower. We should act like it. @DougBurgum and @ChrisAWright_ are America’s energy all-stars. I strongly support their nominations. pic.twitter.com/3o4xuan31r

— Sen. John Barrasso (@SenJohnBarrasso) January 30, 2025

Senate Republicans endorsed Burgum’s nomination, saying he was committed to reversing the work of his predecessor, former Interior Secretary Deb Haaland, to restrict energy resources. Haaland worked to block oil and gas leasing in development in Alaska.

“Governor Burgum knows that America’s natural resources are our greatest national asset,” Senate Majority Leader John Thune said Wednesday on the Senate floor prior to Burgum’s confirmation vote. “Too often, under the Biden administration, the Interior Department was the tip of the spear in restricting development of America’s resources.”

Burgum promised to prioritize energy abundance during his leadership over the Interior Department.

“The American people clearly placed their confidence in President Trump to achieve Energy Dominance,” Burgum wrote in his opening remarks to the Senate Energy and Natural Resources (ENR) Committee during his confirmation hearing on Jan 16. “Energy Dominance is the foundation of historic American prosperity, affordability for American families, and unrivaled national security.”

“President Trump’s Energy Dominance vision will end wars abroad and make life more affordable for every family by driving down inflation,” Burgum added. “President Trump will achieve these goals while championing clean air, clean water, and our beautiful land.”

Burgum won the support of a majority of Senate Democrats, including Democratic New Mexico Sen. Martin Heinrich who serves as the lead Democrat on the Senate ENR Committee.

“I clearly do not agree with Governor Burgum on every issue,” Heinrich wrote in a statement on Jan. 23. “However, I voted to confirm Governor Burgum’s nomination for Interior Secretary because I have found that a healthy relationship with the Secretary of Interior is critical to securing the best outcomes for the State of New Mexico.”

Trump has tasked Burgum with leading a newly-created interagency National Energy Council to cut regulations affecting the energy sector and harness private sector investment related to energy innovation. The president also appointed Burgum to a seat on the National Security Council, a rare appointment for an energy secretary.

Burgum served two terms as North Dakota’s governor beginning in December 2016. He launched a presidential run in June 2023, but struggled to gain traction and suspended his campaign that December. He endorsed Trump in January 2024 and served as a campaign surrogate throughout the remainder of the race.

Thune teed up confirmation votes Thursday evening on energy executive Chris Wright to lead the Department of Energy and former Republican Georgia Rep. Doug Collins to lead the Department of Veterans’ Affairs.

From the Daily Caller News Foundation

By Roderick Law

President Donald Trump has hit the ground running, issuing a flurry of executive orders. Two of them are particularly welcome.

The first, “Restoring Freedom of Speech and Ending Federal Censorship,” mandates agencies across the government cease funding and end any activities that would “unconstitutionally abridge the free speech of any American citizen.” The other, “Ending the Weaponization of the Federal Government,” requires agencies “to identify and take appropriate action to correct past misconduct by the Federal Government related to the weaponization of law enforcement and the weaponization of the Intelligence Community.”

Each order is necessary, and their issuance so soon after the inauguration shows that Trump understands that censorship and “lawfare” were rampant under his predecessor.

Former President Joe Biden himself (or whoever gave him words to read) gave us a stark reminder of his comfort with censorship in his farewell address, when he warned of the “potential rise of a tech-industrial complex that could pose real dangers for our country.”

But Biden was referring to the rise of social media that do not enforce speech codes dictated by one side of the political divide. He went on to complain that we are getting “buried under an avalanche of misinformation and disinformation,” while “[s]ocial media is giving up fact-checking.”

It’s true: Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg saw the election results and realized public toleration for censorship has reached its limit. He is dismantling Facebook’s “fact checking” apparatus and following X’s “community notes” model.

Worse, Zuckerburg is telling tales out of school, recalling how during the pandemic Biden officials would “scream” and “curse” at Facebook employees to remove posts that countered the government line. Tech-industrial complexes are dangerous things if you do not control them.

We can’t forget that government censorship, and its support for research into censorship technologies, is broad and deep. Consider the Cybersecurity Advisory Committee of the U.S. Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA). The committee was composed of academics and tech company officials working very closely with government personnel. The Functional Government Initiative (FGI) discovered they also worked with left-wing activists. The committee was created ostensibly in response to misinformation campaigns from foreign actors, but it evolved toward domestic “threats.” It had a “Mis-, Dis-, and Mal-information” subcommittee. “Mal-information” is info that is true, but contrary to the preferred narratives of the censor. Trump’s order directly calls such efforts a “guise” to censor speech “in a manner that advanced the Government’s preferred narrative about significant matters of public debate.” Unfortunately, the committee was the tip of the iceberg. The Pentagon and the State Department had their own ties to censorship initiatives.

The same impulse that fostered censorship weaponized Merrick Garland’s Department of Justice(DOJ). Ask pro-life activists facing prison sentences for peaceful demonstrations outside abortion clinics.

Going back further, talk to parents who, FGI discovered, were called racist and transphobic by teachers unions and the Biden Education Department. Or the concerned parents who dared to speak up in school board meetings around the country. Their reward was being called a threat and singled out by the DOJ and FBI. We can be thankful to whoever it was that leaked the FBI memo recommending infiltrating Catholic Mass enthusiast cells.

Trump’s executive order on weaponization will hopefully right some of these wrongs and remind the DOJ and intelligence services that they work for the people. (The president also stripped security clearances from the 51 former intelligence officials who, without evidence, dismissed the Hunter Biden laptop story as a “Russian information operation.”) If nothing else, it will make clear to all, no matter their party, that there are no grey areas and no workarounds when it comes to fundamental constitutional rights.

The federal government has strayed far from its purpose of securing the God-given rights of its citizens. Trump received a mandate from the voters to move it back to the true path, and these orders bring vital reforms. Ideally, Congress will follow suit and pass legislation doing the same, but permanently. As Americans, it is the least we should expect from our government.

Roderick Law is the communications director for the Functional Government Initiative.