Happy Tax Day: While Foreign Corporations Cash In, American Taxpayers Foot the Bill for Doug Burgum’s Mismanagement

HELENA, MT — Interior Secretary Doug Burgum is picking American taxpayers’ pockets with one hand and opening the door to foreign corporate interests with the other. After slashing nearly a quarter of the national park workforce and proposing to cut nearly $750 million more from park operations, Burgum is handing out $1 billion in public funds, according to new reporting by HeatMap News, to a French energy company to abandon lower-cost American wind energy projects. At the same time, he’s handing out favors and taxpayer-backed equity stakes to foreign mining companies. 

“Tax day is a good reminder that Burgum’s wasting tax dollars at our expense. If there’s one thing Secretary Burgum is good at, it’s making American families pay more so corporations can profit,” said Jayson O'Neill, spokesperson for Save Our Parks. “Burgum handed a billion dollars to a French energy company and he’s blocking affordable clean energy projects that would actually lower Americans’ utility bills. Burgum’s ‘energy dominance’ means corporate socialism for foreign interests and a tax hike for everyone else. Congress needs to put a stop to Burgum's wasteful and costly schemes at taxpayers expense.”

Meanwhile, his fail-by-design plan is in full swing as he pushes to transfer and sell off public lands. Leaving no doubt, Burgum and his staff at Interior even went as far as helping anti-public lands Senator Mike Lee (R-UT) with his unpopular push to sell-off public lands. Trump’s super secretive Interior Secretary was recently on a tour of a few Western states, including stops in Nevada. On that swing, Burgum again called for the disposal of public lands, contrary to existing federal law. 

The costly special interest giveaways by Burgum are coupled with the fact that the public might not even know about public land decisions after the Interior Secretary gutted America’s bedrock environmental law, icing the public out. And things keep getting more costly for American taxpayers due to Burgum’s failed ‘energy dominance’ agenda. While oil and gas corporations make billions in profits, Americans are paying more at the pump and paying more for electricity while collecting less revenue from the development of our public resources.

“Anyone with a two dollar calculator knows Doug Burgum’s math adds up to more debt and more costs for working Americans, and that’s his intent,” concluded O’Neill. 

To speak with Save Our Parks spokesperson Jayson O’Neill, email jayson@focalpointstrategygroup.com. 

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