While Governor Doug Burgum was certainly not one of our favorite cabinet picks that President Trump made, we’re willing to give him the benefit of the doubt for now. Burgum is proving himself to be a good choice to head the Department of Interior, which controls vast amounts of public lands and natural resources in the US.
During an interview with Breitbart News this week, Burgum illustrated an important point that no one ever brings up when they talk about our staggering and unsustainable national debt.
Yes, America does have an insane amount of debt that will destroy the country if it’s not brought under control by President Trump and DOGE very soon.
But what are the assets on the other side of the balance sheet that America has?
Burgum notes that America has millions of acres of government-owned land that is currently unused. We already know that many of those acres have precious minerals, oil, and gas beneath them.
But those acres are locked up and development of the natural resources is prohibited by stupid environmental rules that are supposedly protecting us from the fake and nonexistent problem of global warming. Watch as Burgum explains how America’s natural resource assets far exceed our $37 trillion national debt—if only we were smart enough to utilize them:
.@SecretaryBurgum explains how America's assets could be worth triple our national debt: "There's 700 million acres of subsurface that we have the mineral rights, critical minerals, oil and gas… And there's 2.5 billion acres of offshore many of which have not even been… pic.twitter.com/59XONtb8Bw
— Rapid Response 47 (@RapidResponse47) March 19, 2025