Kathryn Burgum applauds as the husband of North Dakota Republican Governor Doug Burgum shakes hands with former US President and 2024 presidential candidate Donald Trump during a Caucus Night viewing party in Las Vegas, Nevada, on February 8, 2024.
Patrick T. Fallon | AFP Getty Images
North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum – who is a candidate for presidential candidate Donald Trump – denied claims that the former president had told oil executives that he would reduce regulations if elected in exchange for helping him raise money to return to the White House. .
According to the Washington Post, Trump told some of the country’s top oil executives during a meeting with him earlier this year at the Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach, Florida, that he would reverse dozens of environmental regulations and policies that the Biden administration had implemented and preventing new ones from being implemented. That is, if he raises $1 billion to get re-elected.
The donation will be a “deal” because he avoids taxes and regulations due to him, he said. Trump also reportedly told executives that he would auction off more oil drilling leases in the Gulf of Mexico.
“I was in that meeting — it didn’t happen,” Burgum said on CBS’ “Face the Nation” on Sunday. “They’re not asking for a billion-dollar donation, and there’s no quid pro quo.”
Burgum also denied that Trump is targeting the oil industry to fund his re-election, saying that “he’s not targeting anybody” and is “doing what the candidates do” by going and listening to the industry that is “the basis of the whole economy.”
In January, Burgum endorsed Trump for president. He ended his bid for the Republican nomination a month earlier in December 2023 after launching his campaign in June of that year and has since become an adviser to Trump on energy policy.
The Burgum family leased 200 acres of farmland in Williams County, North Dakota, to Continental Resources — the nation’s largest oil and gas leaseholder — for oil and gas pumping.
While his financial disclosures say he earned up to $50,000 in royalties from the end of 2022 from the deal with Continental, experts told CNBC that he and his family business have earned thousands more since signing a contract with the company in 2009.
When asked if his alignment with the energy industry has alienated young voters who say climate and environmental policy are important to them, Burgum “isn’t concerned about that,” he said.
Burgum, who is also a software entrepreneur, announced earlier this year that he would not seek a third term as governor. The second term will end on December 14.
