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In Ancient Rome, there was a little-used title that was bestowed on someone to serve as the ‘break glass in case of need of an emergency dictator’ leader. If the tyrant was away for any extended period of time, the Master of the Horse stepped in and assumed the role of the dictator, with all the rights and privileges, until the main guy returned. As it turns out, both North and South Dakota are now vulnerable to a siege led by Minnesota’s embittered governor, Tim Walz.

As President-Elect Donald Trump continues to make announcements filling out his cabinet and senior staff, the poaching has been relatively evenly split between members of Congress and the governor ranks. Marco Rubio in the Senate has been tapped for Secretary of State, but so far, he’s the only member of the upper chamber chosen. Included in the first wave of picks, was South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem going to Homeland Security. Last night at Mar-A-Lago, Trump teased an upcoming pick without wanting to name who the person was or for which office. Then, sensing he was on a roll, he let fly with the news anyway. 

Now granted, I’m in orbit around Hugh Hewitt’s larger world, having produced his nationally-syndicated radio program for almost a quarter century. Hugh made his bones in law as a very capable Environmental Species attorney. The battles he waged and often won against the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Department, The Bureau of Land Management, and the overall department which oversees them, the Department of the Interior, are legendary around these parts. To us, of all the cabinet-level picks ranked in importance, Department of Defense and State are right up there, for obvious reasons. The Department of Justice is clearly front and center after being politicized and weaponized over the last four years. But right there among them, if this country is going to unleash the boom cycle it’s capable of in order to grow our way out of economic doldrums is the Department of the Interior. North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum has been chosen for that job, and this is among the finest of picks Donald Trump has made yet. 

It had been speculated almost since the day Burgum suspended his campaign for the presidency and endorsed Donald Trump that he would be on the short list for some cabinet pick, perhaps the Department of Energy, which would also have been a natural fit. North Dakota is an energy state. It’s rich with natural resources, and could be one of the catalyst states to cause an energy-led explosion of jobs and economic prosperity if only the federal government could get out of the way. But Burgum going to DOI is an inspired choice. 

The Department of the Interior is currently home to 70,000 federal employees. Think of that. 70,000. The Bureau of Land Management oversees 640 million acres of federal land. Alaska is the largest state in the Union by far.  It’s about 365 million acres. If overlaid on top of the continental United States, this is how big it is.

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Now double it, minus the Aleutian Islands, and that’s how much land is off limits to private development. It’s over half the land mass of the United States. The amount of oil alone that’s available but not being tapped in the Dakotas, Alaska, in Texas and the Southwest, not to mention the reserves that are in the Gulf of Mexico and off the West Coast, are staggering. We could become the world’s leading producer of oil and natural gas in relatively short order were we have to have policies that would allow for the increased exploration and development of land just sitting there unused. 

China is trying to corner the market in rare earth minerals that are necessary in things like batteries and electronics to which environmentalists are demanding we migrate. Wyoming recently discovered 228,000 tons of lithium. That would more than offset the maneuvering China is attempting were we to let the private sector loose. Enter Doug Burgum.

The entire platform of Governor Burgum on which he ran in the Republican primary earlier this year revolved around letting energy production be the catalyst to economic growth. Working hand in glove with the newly-minted Department of Government Efficiency, the regulatory powers of all the agencies in his purview are going to be slashed. And that’s just on public land. 

Interior also is the bane of the existence of homebuilders and business development projects everywhere. Remember the Delta Smelt, the bait fish that caused the water to stop flowing from Northern California to the Central Valley, which caused the Western U.S.’ breadbasket to dry up? The Waters of the United States, which meant if you had a puddle from a rainstorm on your property and a mosquito or some protected species landed on it, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service deemed your land a federal waterway and endangered species habitat and no longer under your control? All of those ridiculous rules and regulations, all those know-nothing bureaucrats are now the Endangered Species in Burgum’s Department of Interior in this next administration. 

I mentioned working with Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy at D.O.G.E. Ramaswamy mentioned yesterday that this isn’t just about getting rid of $4 million dollar toilet projects and other wasteful spending, though that’s very much included in their mission statement. It’s capitalizing on the Supreme Court’s ruling in West Virginia V. EPA, gutting the Chevron doctrine once and for all. 

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It seriously is difficult to overstate the magnitude of what is coming for the regulatory state, especially including the Department of the Interior. Cynical Publius over on X picked up on the enormity of this as well. 

Another grand slam with the Burgum pick. I think Todd Blanche is a terrific pick for deputy Attorney General. In fact, I wouldn’t be upset if he ends up with the top job after nature, and the Senate, runs its course with Matt Gaetz. I’m meh on the RFK pick at HHS. We knew that cake was baked when Kennedy dropped out and endorsed Donald Trump. But Doug Collins at VA? Another home run. John Sauer, the architect of the Trump immunity case that succeeded at the Supreme Court as the incoming Solicitor General is another terrific selection. 

Take the full spectrum of picks by Donald Trump since the election, and even the biggest skeptics of the President-Elect on our side of the aisle have to admit most of them are better than expected. 

If you happen to live in the Dakotas, North or South, I hope your lieutenant governors are actual people and that they know what they’re doing. If not, I hereby put in my application to be named Master of the Horse. I can be there on a moment’s notice to fend off the Gopher State invasionary force that surely is coming. Tim Walz thought he was going to help run the country. I promise to keep him contained to Minnesota. 

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