President-elect Donald Trump has tapped North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum to lead the Interior Department, leading the new administration’s plans to open federal lands and waters to oil and gas drilling.

Burgum, 68, has long- standing ties to fossil fuel companies and acted as a liaison between the Trump campaign and the oil executives who have donated heavily to it. Burgum is particularly close to Harold G. Hamm, the billionaire founder and chair of Continental Resources, one of the country’s largest independent oil companies, who has hosted fundraisers and donated nearly $5 million to Trump since 2023.

Trump made the announcement during a gala for the America First Policy Institute being held at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Fla. Burgum was in attendance.

“I won’t tell you his name, it might be something like Burgum,” Trump said, before telling the crowd, “Actually, he’s going to head the Department of Interior, and he’s going to be fantastic.”

North Dakota sits over part of the Bakken Formation, which has emerged as a major source of oil in the United States thanks to hydraulic fracturing, a horizontal drilling technique that took off in 2008 and made it possible to extract substantial amounts of oil that had been inaccessible through traditional drilling.

Burgum has been a cheerleader for drilling, a posture that fits in well with the mantra of “Drill, baby, drill,” which Trump repeatedly uses to describe his energy policy.

Scientists have said that the United States and other major economies must stop developing new oil and gas projects to avert the most catastrophic effects of global warming. The burning of oil, gas and coal is the main driver of climate change.

The Biden administration has tried to limit some drilling on public lands and in federal waters, particularly in fragile wilderness such as the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Trump has said he would end those protections.

Past congressional ally selected for VA chief

Trump also said Thursday that he intended to nominate former Rep. Doug Collins, R-Ga., to lead the Veterans Affairs Department, elevating another of his most vocal defenders during his first impeachment inquiry.

“We must take care of our brave men and women in uniform, and Doug will be a great advocate for our Active Duty Servicemembers, Veterans, and Military Families to ensure they have the support they need,” Trump wrote in a statement.

Collins, 58, who serves in the Air Force Reserve as a chaplain and deployed to Iraq for five months, said in a statement on social media that he would “fight tirelessly to streamline and cut regulations in the VA, root out corruption, and ensure every veteran receives the benefits they’ve earned.”

As a member of Congress, Collins became the face of Trump’s first impeachment defense in the House in 2019. Then the top Republican on the Judiciary Committee, Collins emerged as a fixture on Fox News and led House Republicans’ efforts to undercut the impeachment hearings held by Democrats.

Trump has tapped three other current or former House Republicans who defended him during the impeachment inquiry to serve in his Cabinet.

Collins cut a somewhat idiosyncratic figure in the House. In front of the cameras during the impeachment proceedings against Trump, he was fiercely partisan. But he also worked with Rep. Hakeem Jeffries of New York, now the Democratic leader, to pass bipartisan legislation aimed at rolling back tough sentencing laws that had caused the country’s prison population to balloon.

Trump lawyers selected for top positions at DOJ

Meanwhile, Trump has chosen Todd Blanche, an attorney who led the legal team that defended the Republican at his hush money criminal trial, to serve as the second-highest ranking Justice Department official.

A former federal prosecutor, Blanche has been a key figure on Trump’s defense team both in the New York case that ended in a conviction in May, and the federal cases brought by Justice Department special counsel Jack Smith.

“Todd is an excellent attorney who will be a crucial leader in the Justice Department, fixing what has been a broken System of Justice for far too long,” Trump said in a statement Thursday.

If confirmed as deputy attorney general by the Republican-led Senate, Blanche would manage the day-to-day operations of the Justice Department, which Trump has vowed to radically overhaul.

The announcement comes a day after the president-elect said he had chosen as attorney general Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida, a Trump loyalist who once faced a DOJ sex trafficking investigation that ended in no charges.

Trump is appointing two other members of his defense team to high-ranking Justice Department positions.

Emil Bove, an ex-federal prosecutor, will be the principal associate deputy attorney general and will serve as acting deputy attorney general until Blanche is confirmed, Trump said.

Trump tabbed D. John Sauer, who successfully argued his presidential immunity case before the U.S. Supreme Court, to be the solicitor general, representing his administration before the high court.

Blanche represented Trump in both the 2020 election interference case in Washington and the Florida case accusing the former president of hoarding classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago estate. In both cases, the defense team successfully mounted a legal strategy focused heavily on delaying the cases until after the election.