More than two-thirds of public land in Nevada is owned by the federal government, giving the U.S. Department of the Interior — the government agency that oversees the nation’s natural and cultural resources — an outsized influence in the state. 

Likewise, the head of the agency has massive influence over the fate of mining operations, conservation efforts, renewable energy development, and oil and gas leasing in Nevada.

On Friday, President-elect Donald Trump announced that North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum will serve as the head of the Department of the Interior, where he would be tasked with fulfilling Trump’s campaign promise to “drill, baby, drill,” and increase oil, gas and coal production on public lands.

Nevada Democratic Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto indicated she plans to meet with Burgum before his hearing with the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee — where she chairs the Subcommittee on Public Lands, Forests, and Mining — to discuss “the importance of protecting Nevada’s public lands and supporting our critical minerals and clean energy industries,” according to a spokesperson from her office. 

As governor of a state where less than 4% of its more than 44 million acres of land are federally owned, Burgum’s approach to managing public lands is not entirely clear. However, his history as governor of North Dakota does offer some clues to his possible approach to Nevada’s public lands.

Oil and gas leasing

Burgum, a wealthy software executive turned Republican governor, is a close ally of the fossil fuel industry and has filed a handful of lawsuits against the agency he may soon run, including a challenge to open more oil and gas leasing in North Dakota.

While naming Burgum his Interior Secretary designee, Trump also said the governor would be appointed to lead a “National Energy Council” that would chart “the path to U.S. ENERGY DOMINANCE by cutting red tape, enhancing private sector investments across all sectors of the Economy, and by focusing on INNOVATION over longstanding, but totally unnecessary, regulation.”

Burgum has not been shy about lambasting the Biden administration for policies he says raise barriers that limit oil production and the natural gas industry, despite the U.S. producing more crude oil than any other country ever in the past six years.

A more gung ho approach to oil and gas leasing could spell trouble for some of Nevada’s more scenic public landscapes. During Trump’s first term, his administration proposed auctioning off more than 500,000 acres of land in Nevada for oil and gas drilling leases, including about 54,000 acres of Nevada’s Ruby Mountains.

In response, Cortez Masto sponsored the Ruby Mountains Protection Act, a bill that would withdraw about 450,000 acres of National Forest System lands around the Ruby Mountain from any oil and gas leasing.

However, oil and gas production in Nevada has always been negligible, and both industry and environmentalists remain skeptical that significant production in Nevada will make economic sense any time soon.

Renewable energy

Renewable energy industries are helping power Nevada’s economic growth. Nevada ranks eighth nationally for new clean energy investments and sixth for new clean energy jobs spurred by federal clean energy policies, especially those authorized by the Inflation Reduction Act.

Burgum spoke out against the Inflation Reduction Act, Biden’s signature climate bill.

Conservation groups in Nevada expect that with Burgum at the helm of the Interior, the agency will pivot away from investing in Nevada’s booming renewable energy industry and towards “outdated, expensive, polluting technology like gas power plants.”

“When Burgum and Trump say they’re going to ‘cut red tape’ in the name of American Energy, that means they want to pave over our public lands and endangered species habitat, skip community consultation and engagement, all in the name of allowing their polluter pals to profit quicker off of Nevada,” said OIivia Tanager, the SierraClub Toiyabe Chapter director.

As governor of North Dakota, Burgum supported an “all-inclusive energy portfolio” that allows for renewable energy, while supporting the development of oil, natural gas, and coal operations, which dominate the state’s energy production. 

Burgun has not actively pushed for renewable energy production in his state. During his term, he focused on biofuel, carbon capture and storage projects, allocating about $25 million to support the “low-emission technologies.”

Burgum has also proved to be a fervent supporter of coal-fired power plants.  As governor of North Dakota, he passed several pieces of legislation to support the industry’s long-term viability, including exempting coal-fired power plants from the state’s coal conversion facility tax for five years.

“Further, with Reno and Las Vegas being the first and second fastest warming cities in the country, a continued reliance on fossil fuel extraction will mean even more extreme heat and more heat related deaths across the state,” Tanager said.

Lithium mining

Five days before the end of Trump’s first term his administration approved the massive Thacker Pass lithium mine near the Nevada-Oregon border, one of several projects fast-tracked in the last days of the Trump administration to expand mining on public land.

Burgum has expressed enthusiasm for expanding domestic production of minerals needed for battery production, including praising the approval of a nickel processing plant in his state that received $144 million in federal funding through the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law.

Trump’s plan to appoint Burgum as head of the Interior has alarmed other environmental and conservation groups in Nevada, who point to the administration fast-tracking massive mining projects during his first term.

“When Trump attacked our bedrock environmental laws during his first administration, Burgum stood up and applauded,” said Patrick Donnelly, Great Basin director at the Center for Biological Diversity. “If confirmed, Burgum will roll out the red carpet for the corporate polluters who put Trump into office so they can pillage Nevada’s public lands for profit.”

A change in leadership could spell trouble for a local campaign urging the Interior to implement a 20-year ban on new mining operations on public land surrounding the Ash Meadows National Wildlife Refuge, a critical wetland habitat that supports a dozen endangered and threatened species.

“We hope that the Department of the Interior and its agencies continue to earnestly respect, listen to, and respond to the voices of those whose lives and livelihoods are most directly impacted by these issues,” said Mason Voehl, the executive director of the Amargosa Conservancy.