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Floor Speech

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Mr. HOEVEN. Mr. President, I rise today to urge my colleagues to support the confirmation of Governor Doug Burgum from my home State of North Dakota to serve as our Nation's 55th Secretary of the Interior.

Whether it is energy, grazing, outdoor recreation, water supply, the National Park Service, or Tribal relations, Doug Burgum is an outstanding choice who fully understands the vast responsibilities under the Department of the Interior.

I have had the pleasure to know Doug for over 30 years, and throughout his career, Doug has gained well-deserved national recognition as an innovative leader.

Governor Burgum is a proud native of Arthur, ND, earning his bachelor's degree from North Dakota State University--home of the Bison--and his master's in business administration from the Stanford Graduate School of Business.

After working as a consultant at McKinsey, he returned home to North Dakota, and he literally bet the family farm to purchase a nascent accounting software company, Great Plains Software. Over time, Doug hired thousands of North Dakotans to build and grow Great Plains Software, eventually launching a public offering in 1997. Then, ultimately, Great Plains Software was purchased by Microsoft in 2001, and it is now known as Microsoft Business Solutions. The vision of Microsoft actually goes back to the company that he built and to this day I think employs several thousand people in and around Fargo, ND.

Great Plains Software, as I said, became Microsoft Business Solutions. He remained at Microsoft for a number of years, actually hiring the current CEO during his time there. He then left Microsoft in 2007, started a number of other companies, went into philanthropy and helped really revitalize downtown Fargo, continued his support for NDSU, and just had a very significant impact in many different aspects of business of philanthropy.

It is because of his countless contributions to North Dakota that, in 2009, during my time as Governor, I named Doug as the 37th recipient of the Theodore Roosevelt Rough Rider Award, which is our State's highest honor.

I remember he looked at me at that time and said--it was kind of funny. We had this big event for him and gave him this nice State honor. He looked at me and said, ``Gee, John, this is really great, but I sure hope I am not done accomplishing things at this point,'' you know, as he was getting the award. I remember that very clearly. Obviously, he was far from done.

In 2016, Doug was elected as the 33rd Governor of North Dakota, and then he was reelected in 2020. He has been a true partner as we worked together to grow North Dakota into an energy powerhouse for our Nation.

When I started as Governor, we produced less than 100,000 barrels of oil a day, going down, and we have gotten it up all the way to 1.5 million barrels of oil a day--at that point, second only to Texas. It has gone back a little bit under the Biden administration, but we look forward to continuing to grow not just oil and gas but all the different sources of energy--coal-fired electricity, renewables, hydro. Just a real energy powerhouse for our country. So he brings that incredible energy experience to his new role.

Doug did a great job as Governor, and then he ran for President. He was the first Presidential candidate, when he left the race, to endorse President Trump--first one to do it.

President Trump knows the importance of a big energy agenda, and he knows what energy dominance means for our country, for our economic and national security. President Trump saw that Doug is not just the right fit to head the Department of the Interior as Secretary; President Trump also tapped Doug to lead the newly formed National Energy Council. Doug will do a tremendous job leading this integrated effort to truly make our country energy dominant, and he will work with President Trump to do that--vitally important for our economy, vitally important to bring down inflation, vitally important for national security, and vitally important to our allies so that they get energy from the United States rather than buying oil from countries like Russia or Iran and fueling either Russia's war machine or Iran's state sponsorship of terror.

But Doug not only understands energy, he is also a rancher, a hunter. He loves our national parks, and he loves the great outdoors. That is what you want in a Secretary of the Interior because all of those are part of his portfolio at Interior.

He has extensive experience in Native American affairs, and not only does he have the support of all of the Tribes in our State, he has the support from more than 180 Tribes from across the Nation.

Doug received overwhelming bipartisan support from our Energy and Natural Resources Committee. He came out of committee 18 to 2. So I strongly urge all of my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to vote for his confirmation when we vote here very soon on his approval to be the next Secretary of the Interior for the United States of America.

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