Wright and Burgum – Trump’s Power Tiger Staff

Barrasso called energy “the master resource” and linked control of energy production the key to controlling the nation’s future.

And then he said, “Governor Doug Burgum and Chris Wright will treat American energy as the God-given blessing it is.”

According to President Trump, he wanted Burgum for Energy Secretary until Burgum said, “You gotta get this guy Chris Wright…. I’m good, but he’s better.”

Burgum is the one who told Trump to hire Wright for the energy job, the president regularly says. “Doug said, ‘You gotta get this guy Chris Wright,’” Trump said in a January Cabinet meeting. Trump recalled telling Burgum, “But I want you to run energy.” Burgum said, “Well, I’m good at it, but he’s better.”

Burgum became Interior Secretary and Wright was approved as Energy Secretary. The President has praised both repeatedly, while adding EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin to the team that is cutting regulations, opening lands and waters for exploration and development, and making deals left and right to stimulate the nation’s energy sector.

Immediately after his confirmation, Burgum signed a series of orders aimed at unleashing the full energy potential of public lands in Alaska and eliminating “harmful, coercive climate policies” from the Biden era.

By April 2025, Burgum was implementing Trump’s executive order “Unleashing American Energy” in announcing alternative NEPA procedures with a review cap of 28 days to expedite approvals for essential energy infrastructure and critical minerals development.

At the same time, Interior revised its policy on offshore drilling to allow an increase in pressure differential from 200 psi to 1,500 psi – a move predicted to enable a 10% increase in oil production (an extra 100,000 barrels per day), and up to 61% more oil over a 30-year period.

Meanwhile, Wright’s first order directed the DOE to “unleash a golden era of American energy dominance.”  One major step was authorizing or reauthorizing more than 17.6 billion cubic feet per day of LNG exports – more than 70% greater than the world’s second-largest LNG supplier.

To make that possible, Energy removed Biden regulatory orders blocking LNG exports, including one banning the use of LNG as a marine fuel to power vessels. That led to a June 2025 commitment by Japanese energy company JERA to procure up to 5.5 million metric tons per year of LNG, adding up to $200 billion to America’s GPD and supporting more than 50,000 American jobs per year.

In October, Burgum aides met with Alaska officials to announce Interior was reopening the Costal Plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge for oil and gas leasing and completing right-of-way permits for the Ambler Road, projects stalled in the Biden era.

A January 2026 DOE fact sheet reported that U.S. crude oil production set an all-time record of 13.6 million barrels per day in 2025 and that natural gas production was expected to reach an all-time high of 109 billion cubic feet per day in 2026. The Strategic Petroleum Reserve, significantly depleted in the Biden era as a brake on gasoline prices, was being refilled.

Then the U.S. and Israel determined it was necessary to cripple the Iranian regime, a move that eventually resulted in a double blockade of the Strait of Hormuz and crippled Iranian oil production. The move came shortly after the capture of Venezuelan dictator Maduro, which led to U.S. hegemony over Venezuela’s massive oil reserves.

Gasoline prices, which had fallen below $3 per gallon, roared about $4, and Politico declared that Trump’s “Tiger Team” (Burgum and Wright) appeared “flummoxed” by the surge in global oil prices – and, as Biden had done, Trump authorized releases of oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. [Now he wants to suspend the federal gasoline tax for the duration of the Iran campaign.]

With the blockade continuing, and Iran’s fractured leadership remaining uncooperative, the fate of oil shipments through the Persian Gulf remains uncertain. But even that “blip” has led to increased demand for U.S. crude, to the delight especially of Gulf Coast refineries.

While Asian refineries were forced to cut production to circa 84% of capacity, U.S refinery utilization moved to 92% and Gulf Coast refineries jumped 5% to 95% of capacity in March – and still going strong.

Meanwhile, Burgum and Wright have kept pushing the envelope – even venturing into unfriendly territory to lower energy prices in the Northeast. On April 14, the Tiger Team was joined by Zeldin in a groundbreaking ceremony for the Northeast Supply Enhancement (NESE) pipeline that will transport natural gas from Pennsylvania into New York City and Long Island.

To the consternation of climate activists, New York Governor Kathy Hochul reversed the state’s policy of banning pipeline construction (perhaps in return for Washington allowing an offshore wind project). Hochul would later soften the blow by repealing a rule that allowed gas utilities to charge ratepayers for pipeline expansions.

On April 28, Wright announced billions of dollars of private capital investment in the Central and Eastern European region, including the formal launch of the Trump Peace Pipelines Framework that is aimed at enabling construction of natural gas infrastructure to receive LNG from the U.S. The U.S. needs those markets, as it is now leading the world in LNG exports (so quickly after the Biden ban) and producing as much natural gas as Russia, China, and Iran combined.

Earlier this month, the DOE announced a $36 million grant to the University of North Dakota’s Energy and Environmental Research Center to advance commercial deployment of enhanced oil recovery (EOR) technologies in the Bakken Shale formation. While the Bakken holds potential to unlock billions of barrels of oil, currently only about 10% of the oil in unconventional shale formations is recovered.

And on May 11, Burgum told Breitbart News that royalties from oil and gas and minerals production on federal lands help support conservation, wildlife, and national parks (whereas prior administrations fought against minerals development on federal lands).

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Duggan Flanakin is a senior policy analyst at the Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow who writes on a wide variety of public policy issues.