Staff Reports
Interior Secretary Doug Burgum made a blunt, welcome point this week on stage at Breitbart’s “Harnessing American Power” event: producing energy on federal lands pays the bills, and those bills include real conservation. Burgum, who also chairs the National Energy Dominance Council, said the lease-to-permit-to-production pipeline brings royalties back to the American people — money that can be used for parks, wildlife and other public benefits. It’s a straightforward idea that has been drowned out by ideology for too long.
Royalties: The Practical Side of Conservation
Leases, permits and real dollars
Burgum explained the simple chain: lease auctions, permits to drill, then production — and with production come royalties, bonus bids and rents. Those receipts flow into federal and state accounts under long-standing law, and they are not theoretical. The Department of the Interior points to record U.S. energy production and rising receipts as proof that using public lands responsibly produces revenue for parks and conservation. Call it patriotic capitalism: harness American resources, then use the proceeds to protect what Americans care about.
Cutting Bureaucracy, Getting Results
From a 5,600 backlog to a 91% reduction, says DOI
On stage, Burgum singled out the BLM Carlsbad office, saying it once sat on roughly 5,600 unprocessed permit applications and that the department has cut that backlog by about 91 percent. If true, that’s the kind of management success conservatives love to praise — fewer delays, more certainty for operators, and more predictable revenue for the public. Bureaucrats who hide behind red tape should be nervous. Processing permits faster doesn’t mean ignoring environmental rules; it means following the law while treating taxpayers like customers.
Mapping America’s Minerals: Lithium and Beyond
Domestic supply, fewer foreign dependencies
Burgum also highlighted a practical piece of the energy puzzle: mapping. He pointed to recent USGS work that found big lithium potential in Appalachia — enough, he said, to replace decades of imports. That’s the kind of discovery that undercuts the “we can be clean and soft and blind” crowd. If we want electric vehicles, batteries and energy security, we need minerals mined on U.S. soil under U.S. rules. Mapping and mining responsibly means jobs, supply chains and, yes, royalties that fund conservation too.
Trade-offs Matter — And Conservatives Should Own Them
Common-sense stewardship, not dogma
Critics will scream about wildlife and climate, and those concerns deserve attention. But stewardship is not the same as shutdown. Burgum’s message is a conservative case for balance: protect true wilderness, manage the rest, and use the proceeds to strengthen parks and habitat. This approach treats America’s public lands as assets, not political props. If Republicans want to win the argument, we should point to facts: more permits processed, more production, more royalties — and more cash to keep America’s parks beautiful. That’s a policy people can understand and support.
