Another Bad Week For Burgum: Foreign Adventurism, Closed-Door Mining Deals, More Corruption, and Giveaways
Memorandum: Another Bad Week For Burgum: Foreign Adventurism, Closed-Door Mining Deals, More Corruption, and Giveaways
To: Interested Parties
From: Save Our Parks
Date: Friday, March 6, 2026
Contact: Jayson O’Neill, Save Our Parks Spokesperson
Interior Secretary Doug Burgum had another disastrous week after the courts rejected efforts to prioritize extractive industry profits over Americans' public lands. The ruling, which blocked oil and gas leasing without adequate environmental review, will have major implications after Burgum gutted key provisions of the National Environmental Policy Act. This week's developments confirm, yet again, that he's more focused on leading the administration's censorship efforts and addressing issues outside his department's purview while his crony-filled Interior Department continues to provide concierge, white-glove service for corporate interests exploiting America's natural resources at the expense of America’s outdoors and lands.
Giving away our public lands here at home isn’t enough to satisfy Burgum’s Big Oil and extractive industry friends and allies, like his close confidant and fracking tycoon Harold Hamm. So this week, Burgum engaged in more foreign adventurism and corporate profiteering. On Wednesday, Burgum jetted off to Venezuela, where he brought American mining companies to pitch Donald Trump’s floundering energy agenda to interim President Delcy Rodríguez. Burgum cheerleaded and heaped praise on the extractive mining corporations present.
Back home, Freedom 250, the shady Burgum-authorized influence-peddling scheme taking over America’s 250th anniversary celebration, is facing serious questions from twelve Senate Democrats over how at least $100 million in tax dollars are being spent on this duplicative effort. The organization, which was granted unusual authority by Burgum to coordinate the nation's semiquincentennial commemoration, has raised concerns about transparency and donor influence. This comes after reporting that Freedom 250 donors were offered special access to the president for contributions of one million dollars or more. The group has received at least $10 million in tax dollars for Burgum’s Propaganda Trucks, which are rolling into communities across the country, spreading whitewashed, revisionist American history one stop at a time.
And, like clockwork, Utah congressional Republicans yet again attacked America’s public lands and parks, introducing a Congressional Review Act resolution to scrap public land protections for Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument. Leading the charge was vehemently anti-public lands Sen. Mike Lee, who has spent his career trying and failing to sell off America’s great outdoors despite Utahns’ and Americans’ growing concerns over the removal of public land protections.
Whether pitching mining deals abroad, funneling tax dollars to partisan influence-peddling schemes, or stacking the deck for extractive industries at home, Burgum’s Interior Department and his allies in Congress have abandoned any pretense of putting the public first when it comes to our parks and public lands. And with oil and energy prices skyrocketing due to Trump’s latest war, expect Burgum and his cronies to double down on public resource exploitation and public land giveaways. Congress must address the serious concerns and questions surrounding corruption and unethical behavior under Burgum before our parks and public lands suffer further.
Check out Save Our Parks rundown of another bad week for Burgum:
The National Park Service Saw Major Job Losses in the Last Year. More Changes Loom. – Inside Climate News, March 3, 2026
Top Interior official visits Point Reyes – Point Reyes Light, March 4, 2026
Burgum pitches mining boom as Venezuela vows reforms – E&E News, March 5, 2026
Interior Strips Protections from Alaska's Famed Dalton Highway, Opens Public Lands to State Transfer – Field & Stream, March 5, 2026
Rise of Trump-backed Freedom 250 draws questions from Democrats – Washington Post, March 5, 2026
Utah Republicans introduce resolution to scrap Biden monument plan – E&E News, March 5, 2026
Feds broke law approving massive Converse gas, oil field, court finds – WyoFile, March 5, 2026
Alaska offshore oil safety regulator on leave after warning of staffing shortfall – Politico, March 5, 2026
Trump Administration Eyes All Options to Tame Oil Prices – Bloomberg, March 5, 2026
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