Connect with us
[bsa_pro_ad_space id=12]

Daily Caller

Trump Energy Policies will be executed by New York Rep. Lee Zeldin and North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum

Published

2 months ago

6 minute read

North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum

From the Daily Caller News Foundation 

By David Blackmon

Zeldin And Burgum Take On Daunting Roles In Second Trump Term

President-elect Donald Trump has set Washington, D.C. afire over the past week with a series of controversial picks for cabinet-level offices and other senior advisory positions. The Senate confirmation hearings for nominees like Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., Matt Gaetz, Pete Hegseth and Tulsi Gabbard are destined to be must-see TV, events Congress could use to help cut the federal deficit by airing in pay-per-view format.

But the nominees whose offices have the biggest impact on energy policy are likely to be among the least controversial announced so far. Those would be former New York Rep. Lee Zeldin to head up the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum to be secretary of the Department of the Interior (DOI). While many would assume the secretary of Energy would be the cabinet position to wield the most power to regulate energy companies, the reality is that these other two positions are far more impactful.

For the oil, gas and coal industries, no part of the federal government possesses greater authority to regulate their business than DOI, which oversees all leasing, mining, drilling and minerals production related to federal lands and waters. The U.S. government is the largest landowner in the country, owning large percentages of the lands in the intermountain West under which some of the biggest domestic reserves of these mineral resources exist. Specific regions of these western states are also prime locations for wind and solar development.

North Dakota is a state rich in mineral reserves and is one of several states in which federal lands are intermingled with state and private landholdings. As governor, Burgum has had to grapple with the same array of permitting, leasing and multiple-use issues he will now be assigned to oversee at DOI. One of his main tasks will be to reinvigorate a federal leasing program that has been held dormant in violation of an array of laws and regulations by current Interior Secretary Deb Haaland, a longtime anti-development activist.

At EPA, Zeldin will be faced with the daunting task of bending a massive bureaucracy that has been packed with direct hires from billionaire-funded climate-alarm groups to get with the Trump agenda. One of Zeldin’s immediate major tasks will be to find ways to streamline the agency’s permitting and approval processes.

The slowness of permitting and delegations of authority at the agency have become bottlenecks to progress in meeting some of the carbon reduction goals laid out in the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), President Joe Biden’s signature piece of legislation. Barring an unlikely major rewrite or repeal of the IRA, those goals will remain among the priorities that Zeldin will find on his plate when he assumes office next year.

While the common perception of the Trump energy-and-climate agenda focuses on its “drill, baby, drill” aspects, it is key to remember that former President Trump did not abandon U.S. carbon reduction coals in his first term and has not pledged to do that in the second term to come. In fact, U.S. carbon emissions fell significantly across Trump’s previous four years in office.

Both Zeldin and Burgum will also make a high priority of reviewing the massive pile of new regulations put in place by the Biden administration, which total to more new pages published in the Federal Register than any other presidency, and then working to eliminate or modify many of them. This is a daunting task that could prove overwhelming given the inevitable obstruction and pushback by the career bureaucracy within these agencies and departments.

Given the way the Trump overall agenda seems to be shaping up, Zeldin and Burgum will be taking on these administrative tasks simultaneously with Trump’s goals of cutting staff and even moving entire agencies to locations outside of Washington, D.C. They will also have to be managed in conjunction with Trump’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency to be run by Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy.

What it all portends is a period of upheaval and radical change not just at EPA and DOI, but across the entire federal structure. Given that the U.S. system of government was designed by the country’s founders to inhibit radical change, we are in for some interesting times indeed.

David Blackmon is an energy writer and consultant based in Texas. He spent 40 years in the oil and gas business, where he specialized in public policy and communications.

Related Topics:

Todayville is a digital media and technology company. We profile unique stories and events in our community. Register and promote your community event for free.

Follow Author

More from this author
Artificial Intelligence / 1 hour ago

World Economic Forum pushes digital globalism that would merge the ‘online and offline’

illegal immigration / 2 hours ago

Dr. Phil Joins Tom Homan and ICE For Midnight Arrests Of Illegal Alien Criminals

Addictions / 4 hours ago

Kensington Market’s overdose prevention site is saving lives but killing business

Daily Caller

Trump Dresses Down The Davos Globalists

Published on January 25, 2025

By

 

From the Daily Caller News Foundation

By David Blackmon

Organizers and attendees at this week’s annual meeting of the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos, Switzerland, had to have been shocked at the new tone from the United States after four years of subservient obeisance from Joe Biden and his ineffective emissaries. In a wide-ranging speech via videoconference on Thursday, President Donald Trump essentially blew up the liberal world order consensus as it relates to the climate alarm agenda.

After putting the conference on notice that the United States would again become a sovereign nation with secure borders, Trump then turned to climate and energy policy. “I terminated the ridiculous and incredibly wasteful Green New Deal – I call it the Green New scam,” Trump began, “withdrew from the one-sided Paris climate Accord and ended the insane and costly electric vehicle mandate. We’re going to let people buy the car they want to buy.”

It was an opening salvo that flew directly in the face of remarks made earlier in the week by the likes of European Commission leader Ursula Von Der Leyen, John Kerry, Al Gore, UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres and many others. But Trump was far from done.

“I declared a national energy emergency to unlock the liquid gold under our feet and pave the way for rapid approvals of new energy infrastructure,” he informed the conference, adding, “The United States has the largest amount of oil and gas of any country on earth, and we’re going to use it.”

The message was crystal clear: The age of America conforming its energy and climate policies to fit the strictures of the liberal world order as formulated at international climate conferences organized by the WEF and the United Nations is over, at least for the next four years and possibly beyond that. It should be obvious to everyone by now that Trump intends to completely reverse the Biden Green New Deal agenda and implement policies designed to return the U.S. to the position of what he calls “energy dominance” achieved during Trump’s first presidency.

The net-zero fantasy goal has gone completely off the rails over the last two years as both the ESG and DEI philosophies fell into disrepute. The fading of those interrelated leftwing religions led major energy companies and the banking community alike to place heavier focus on mounting and financing major energy projects designed to enhance energy and national security.

Energy reality was already making a comeback before Trump emerged triumphant in the 2024 election. Despite these and other emerging realities, the WEF’s old guard came to Davos armed with the same old rhetoric.

Sec. Gen. Guterres, always eager to engage in laughable hyperbole, labeled the oil industry a “Frankenstein monster sparing nothing and no one” as it sows what he calls “climate chaos.”

Von Der Leyen’s bombast was no less absurd: “Heat waves across Asia. Floods from Brazil to Indonesia, from Africa to Europe, wildfires in Canada, Greece and California, hurricanes in the US and the Caribbean. Climate change is still on top of the global agenda,” she warned, sounding for all the world like Bill Murray and his fellow “Ghostbusters” in the famous “dogs and cats living together – mass hysteria!” scene from the 1984 film.

Kerry was somewhat more muted, likely due to the fact that he no longer holds any official role in representing U.S. interests. Gore essentially mailed it in, delivering virtually the same hyperbole-filled remarks he spewed to the 2024 conference.

But a pair of participants in a panel discussion held Wednesday were much more realistic.

Graham Allison, a professor at the Harvard Kennedy School, warned his audience not to underestimate the new president. “Trump has done something no person in the world has ever done before,” he said, adding, “A dead man, a dead politician has risen. This is the greatest comeback in political history of a politician.”

Longtime political columnist Walter Russel Mead added, “We need to also factor in not only who’s won, which is Trump, but who’s lost. Which is to say, us.”

He isn’t wrong, and the elitists who make up the liberal world order would do well to pay attention. Whether they like it or not, their world has changed.

David Blackmon is an energy writer and consultant based in Texas. He spent 40 years in the oil and gas business, where he specialized in public policy and communications.

Continue Reading

Daily Caller

Immigration actions, deportation flights begin

Published on January 25, 2025

By

From The Center Square

By Greg Bishop

The White House says deportation flights have begun. In Illinois, the Pritzker administration is conducting a “know-your-rights” campaign for foreign nationals in the country illegally.

At an unrelated event Friday, Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker said they’re working across state agencies to promote the “know-your-rights” campaign.

“Making sure people know what they should do if an agent shows up and asks them for a proof of citizenship and a proof of residency,” Pritzker said.

He’s not aware of the Trump administration communicating with state agencies, Pritzker said.

“And so it’s a challenge, but we’re communicating with all of our agencies and making sure that again ‘know your rights’ is really what we’re trying to communicate to all the parents,” Pritzker said.

The governor reiterated that he thinks violent criminal illegal immigrants should be deported but continued to vow protection for those living mostly law-abiding lives in Illinois. As for possibly running afoul of federal law, Pritzker said he’s not scared.

“I’m unafraid,” Pritzker said. “I know what my job is. I’m going to protect the people of Illinois, I’m gonna do what’s right. I’m going to make sure that [Trump] is following the law, that the federal government is following the law, and that we’re following the law.”

At an unrelated event in Oak Law, Illinois, Friday, Gov. J.B. Pritzker takes questions about immigration enforcement actions taking place and his administration’s “know your rights” campaign for undocumented immigrants living in Illinois.
Illinois.gov

Speaking remotely to the World Economic Forum Thursday, President Donald Trump said his administration is bringing a “revolution of common sense.”

“My administration is acting with unprecedented speed to fix the disasters we’ve inherited from a totally inept group of people,” Trump said, referring to the administration of his predecessor, Joe Biden.

Under the Biden administration, millions of non-citizens crossed the southern U.S. border. More than 50,000 of them were transported from overburdened border communities to Chicago with migrant sanctuary policies in place.

Under the Trump administration, which took office Jan. 20, Immigration and Customs Enforcement announced within the first three days that they made more than 530 arrests and lodged 373 detainers.

Friday morning, the White House said deportation flights have begun.

“President Trump is sending a strong and clear message to the entire world: if you illegally enter the United States of America, you will face severe consequences,” White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt wrote on X.

Illinois U.S. Rep. Mary Miller, R-Hindsboro, said “Every illegal alien in the United States must be deported.”

“Americans deserve to be safe in our country,” Miller said.

She posted on social media a message thanking Trump and his border czar, Tom Homan, “for taking immediate action to secure our communities from violent foreign criminals.”

ICE says on its website the agency’s Enforcement and Removal Operations workforce consists of more than 7,700 law enforcement and non-law enforcement support personnel across 25 domestic field offices and 208 locations nationwide, 30 overseas postings and multiple temporary duty travel assignments along the border.

“Members of the public who have information about foreign fugitives are urged to contact ICE by calling the ICE Tip Line at 1 (866) 347-2423 or internationally at 001-1802-872-6199,” the agency said. “They can also file a tip online by completing ICE’s online tip form.”

Continue Reading

Trending

X