Interior Secretary-nominee Doug Burgum could soon confront anew a multimillion-dollar mineral rights dispute that’s split his North Dakota constituents and spun Interior Department lawyers around in circles.
The Mandan, Hidatsa and Arikara Nation claims the mineral rights beneath the bed of the Missouri River, where it flows through the Fort Berthold Indian Reservation in western North Dakota. Two Interior Department legal opinions issued in the Obama and Biden administrations say the nation’s claim is correct.
North Dakota state officials believe otherwise. They, too, have a competing Interior legal opinion issued in the first Trump administration on their side.
Now, if Burgum is confirmed as Interior secretary, the two-term Republican North Dakota governor will be challenged to reconsider this home-state issue in which Interior’s legal opinions come and go like streetcars.
