The United States could be sitting on natural resources of oil, gas, and minerals worth $100 trillion, Interior Secretary Doug Burgum told an audience at a Washington, D.C., policy event on Wednesday.
Burgum was interviewed by Breitbart News Washington Bureau Chief Matt Boyle Wednesday morning. Burgum said when he first got to Washington, he would often discuss the country's national debt with "anyone in a position of authority."
"I said, you know, 'What's our debt?' Thirty-six and a half trillion. 'What are our assets?' I mean, I challenge anybody to go try to find a current balance sheet for the United States of America," Burgum said.
Earlier in March, President Donald Trump declared "efficient, reliable, and affordable energy" a critical piece of U.S. national security and economic advantage. The White House announced 11 key initiatives the administration is taking to move the country into a position of energy production and away from foreign energy dependance.
"I can tell you, as the head of Interior, where just in Interior we've got 500 million acres of surface. [Agriculture Secretary] Brooke Rollins has another 200 million in the U.S. Forest Service, in U.S. grasslands. So 700 million acres of surface, there's 700 million acres of subsurface that we have the mineral rights, critical minerals, oil and gas, you know, metallurgical and thermal coal resources," Burgum said.
"And there's 2.5 billion acres of offshore, many of which have not been even explored — all of which represent huge, huge assets for us. So if you take our forests, our lands, our grasslands, our lands that are near urban areas, our mineral resources, or offshore resources, I think the number is ... double, triple, what our national debt is. It could be a $100 trillion," Burgum added.
The Environmental Protection Agency under the Trump administration has announced plans to roll back Biden administration-era emissions limits on power plants and automobiles and cut regulations to aid the oil, gas, and mineral industries.
Burgum has been front and center in Trump's plan to unleash U.S. energy resources, telling an audience of oil, gas, and mining executives in Houston last week, "I'm going to share two words that I do not think that you have heard from a federal official in the Biden administration during the last four years, and those two words are, thank you."
James Morley III ✉
James Morley III is a writer with more than two decades of experience in entertainment, travel, technology, and science and nature.
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