Senate Energy and Natural Resources top Democrat Martin Heinrich and House Natural Resources ranking member Jared Huffman are demanding answers about Interior Secretary Doug Burgum’s secretarial order to “unleash American energy.”
In a letter Tuesday and shared with POLITICO’s E&E News, Heinrich of New Mexico and Huffman of California single out Secretarial Order 3418, which “directs the removal of impediments imposed on the development and use of our Nation’s abundant energy and natural resources by the Biden administration’s burdensome regulations.”
The order, issued 22 days ago, gave Interior leaders 15 days to submit an “action plan” to slash the regulations and rapidly scale up energy production on public lands. Those plans have not yet been released, and Democratic lawmakers say Burgum is evading oversight.
“One week after that deadline, that action plan remains undisclosed to the public and Congress,” the lawmakers wrote. “This delay suggests an attempt to evade Congressional oversight, public scrutiny, and accountability, fueling concerns that the Administration is moving to undermine public land protections and sell our natural resources to the highest bidders in secret.”
