Walter Cruickshank, a senior Interior Department career staffer who has overseen offshore energy leasing, will serve as acting assistant secretary of land and minerals management.
Interior Secretary Doug Burgum placed Cruickshank in the role in a secretarial order signed Feb. 28. The order amends a Jan. 20 directive that had placed Cara Lee Macdonald in the temporary role.
Cruickshank is the deputy director of the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, a job he has held since 2011. A mineral economist, Cruickshank has more than 30 years of experience working on Interior energy issues and briefly served as acting Interior secretary between Trump’s inauguration and Burgum’s Jan. 30 confirmation by Congress.
His posting, albeit a temporary one, underscores the Trump administration’s immediate focus on supporting energy development on public lands.
