Energy Independence

President-elect Donald Trump has picked North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum (R) to serve as both interior secretary and “energy czar,” a newly created role that will orchestrate the administration’s sweeping plans to repeal climate rules, scrap clean-energy subsidies and boost oil and gas production on millions of acres of federal lands nationwide.

President-elect Trump has chosen North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum (R) to lead the Interior Department, which manages the nation’s public lands and waters.

Trump also said Friday that Burgum would lead a newly formed “national energy council” that’s in charge of energy ” permitting, production, generation, distribution, regulation [and] transportation”

President-elect Donald Trump announced Thursday that he will nominate Doug Burgum to be secretary of the Department of the Interior. 

“He’s going to head the Department of Interior, and he’s going to be fantastic,” Trump said of the North Dakota governor during remarks at the America First Policy Institute gala at his Mar-a-Lago estate. 

Trump, 78, indicated that he will make a “formal announcement” regarding Burgum on Friday.

When Kamala Harris and Donald Trump met on the ABC News debate stage this week, the vice president reiterated her changed energy position, saying she would not institute a "fracking ban" if elected.

The debate was held at the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia. Pennsylvania is a key swing state in the race with the second-highest oil and gas economy in the country.

"Let's talk about fracking because we're here in Pennsylvania," Harris said Tuesday evening.

The US is the largest crude oil producer in the world, pumping out nearly 13 million barrels on average every day in 2023, an all-time record, according to new data from the US Energy Information Administration.

That’s an awkward milestone for President Joe Biden, who has arguably done more than any modern president to facilitate America’s transition away from fossil fuels to greener alternatives.

The U.S. led the world in oil production for the sixth consecutive year in 2023, according to a new report from the Energy Information Administration (EIA).

Crude oil production in the U.S., including condensate, averaged 12.9 million barrels per day (b/d) in 2023 — a level which surpassed the American and global record of 12.3 million b/d that the U.S. set in 2019. Average monthly U.S. crude oil production also reached a record high in December 2023 at more than 13.3 million b/d.

In mid-December, I wrote here that the U.S. had set a new annual oil production record:

“The U.S. set a new annual oil production record on December 15, based on data from the Energy Information Administration. Although the official monthly numbers from the EIA won’t be released for a couple of months, we can calculate that a new record has been set based on the following analysis.”

President Joe Biden took another ax to American energy Wednesday with the cancellation of Trump-era leases for oil and gas development in Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

In 2017 through the landmark Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, Congress opened up a 1.6-million-acre patch along Alaska’s north coast for drilling leases. The section amounts to less than 10 percent of the entire refuge, which spans 19.6 million acres in northeast Alaska and is about the size of South Carolina.