Department of the Interior Secretary Doug Burgum dresses in the relaxed style of a Western governor, with his tan sports jacket and Native beaded medallion, reminiscent of another Western leader, the late, great Arizona congressman Mo Udall.
In contrast to the buttoned-up pinstripe speak of Washington, D.C., Burgum also displays an easygoing, common-sense conversational style that should go down well in Indian Country. His North Dakota demeanor is even more surprising since he is a Stanford-educated billionaire tech mogul.
President Trump nominated North Dakota Governor Burgum for secretary in December 2024, and he quickly gained support from tribal government leaders and those leaders who know him best from North Dakota. The five federally recognized tribes in North Dakota all enthusiastically endorsed Burgum’s nomination.
Reasons given for their support included his willingness to listen and communicate with tribal governments, even when the state and the Indian nations disagreed. In the face of the historic Dakota Access Pipeline protests at the Standing Rock Reservation in 2017, then-Governor Burgum met with the Standing Rock leadership for hours during the first week of his tenure. Burgum made an impression by listening to, rather than lecturing, the tribal leaders.
Also noteworthy was Burgum’s willingness to negotiate gaming compacts with the North Dakota tribes, although they did exclude sports betting. As Interior secretary, Burgum will play a role in the $42 billion Indian gaming industry, particularly where the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act grants the secretary certain authorities with respect to signing tribal gaming compacts for approval by state governors, or alternatively signing Secretarial Procedures where the state and Indian tribe cannot agree on a compact.
One of the gaming milestones implemented by the prior administration’s Secretary Deb Haaland and Assistant Secretary Bryan Newland were regulations outlining the process for secretarial procedures and taking off the table expensive local government “impact” payments for non-gaming tribal activities. It is important for Indian Country that Secretary Burgum maintains this posture even when red-state and blue-state governors implore him not to utilize the regulations.
Secretary Burgum will also be in charge of the other IGRA-related activities processed by the Department of the Interior, including land-into-trust acquisitions for gaming and determination of eligibility for gaming on trust land. Over the decades, certain acquisitions became hot buttons both legally and politically at the department, although the volume of such controversies has markedly decreased.
Most opposition efforts to so-called new “greenfield” gaming establishments are based on market competition to both existing commercial and tribal casinos, but they can create widespread press coverage and congressional opposition. As a former governor, Burgum will have solid experience in evaluating the merits of politically charged campaigns designed to challenge Indian gaming decisions.
Burgum comes into office with a high degree of goodwill from Indian Country. While his nomination was not controversial, other than from some environmental groups, Burgum enjoys a good deal of national support from Indian Country in addition to North Dakota.
Burgum noted this support in his opening statement before the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, and Montana Senator Steve Daines highlighted the support from a large national Native group named the Coalition of Large Tribes (COLT).
COLT, a group comprised of over 50 tribes, provided an extensive statement for the hearing record that recounted a number of positive actions Burgum had taken in his capacity as governor of North Dakota. Dozens of other Indian tribes provided similar statements, and Burgum was confirmed in an overwhelmingly bipartisan vote by the United States Senate.
As many secretaries of Interior have discovered, the Indian gaming market is a massive support system for Indian tribal governments, their members and the community at large. Tribal nations have been very generous to local charities, nonprofits, and in emergency response situations.
While cost cutting and efficiency in government operations is always a worthy goal, care must be exercised in the tribal gaming arena because the return on revenue investment for tribal gaming operations far exceeds the minimal staff at the Department of the Interior and National Indian Gaming Commission administrating their IGRA authorities.
Indian Country as a whole looks forward to working in partnership with Secretary Burgum as it has with all prior Interior secretaries. While there will not be complete agreement on all issues, Burgum and Indian Country will work hard to find common ground.
