Exclusive Montana Talks Interview with Trump Interior Sec. Burgum

Why is it different this time? We've seen good news headlines for the mining and timber industries before. Why is this time different? President Donald J. Trump.

We landed an exclusive interview with Trump Interior Secretary Doug Burgum on our statewide radio show- Montana Talks with Aaron Flint.

We talked about unleashing American energy, especially the beautiful clean coal here in Montana and Wyoming. We talked about making mining in America great again. We talked about making our timber industry great again. And we also talked about the "Schumer Shutdown" of the federal government, or- as Secretary Burgum calls it- the "Selfish Schumer Shutdown", and how it is harming gateway communities in and around our national parks.

Here's another reason we are hoping to see longer lasting change. On top of the work President Trump is doing, Secretary Burgum highlighted Congressional efforts.

Secretary Burgum: "A lot of this stuff that President Trump put in executive orders now got included in the One Big Beautiful Bill. So there is durability....the other thing is, the environment has changed. People are waking up. They're understanding that there is no energy transition. It's energy addition. We need more energy. We need more power.

While climate alarmists undermine American energy, China is ramping up.

Secretary Burgum: "China is the world's largest polluter. They're the world's largest emitter of everything, and they're building electricity at an unbelievable rate. You talk about beautiful, clean American coal. China added 93 gigawatts of coal last year. One gigawatt would power Denver, the Denver Metro area. They were opening up a coal plant that size every four days last year. And they're not doing it with with the kind of technology the US is. If there's a coal plant running in America today, I salute you because you've survived 20 years of attack. You've got the cleanest coal plants in the world. And this Trump administration, we're fighting to keep every one of them open. And of course, as you know, we're fast tracking coal leasing including in Montana, Wyoming and North Dakota, all of this to make sure that we're back in the game. We need that coal for critical minerals and for power generation..."

What about the Schumer Shutdown and how it is impacting our national parks and gateway communities? 

Secretary Burgum: " It's the Selfish Schumer Shutdown because it's completely oriented around political self gain. This is hurting the American people every day. It's hurting industry every day. We're borrowing from Peter to pay Paul here, literally, because we gotta pull from non appropriated funds like recreation fees to help keep the parks open, keep permitting going, keeping all the stuff going, to keep America going. But you know, you add this thing up in total, and it's costing across our country millions and millions of dollars a day in lost revenue across all these entrance communities that are suffering. It's got a billions of dollar impact nationally on our economy. And guess what? China's not taking the month off. China hasn't shut down their government, and we're in- I said every day, we're in a competition with China and and they're clearly not thinking outside the Beltway here on the impact it has on everyday Americans."

Full audio should be posted on the Montana Talks app and is also available on Spotify below.