Americans Who Want to Protect Their Public Lands and Waters Are "Financially Illiterate," Says Interior Secretary Burgum

Burgum railed against environmental protections during an infrastructure summit hosted by BlackRock, the world's largest investment firm

If I said “you couldn’t make this up,” I’d be lying at this point. Reality has far surpassed any fiction or satire by now. In fact, so many recent developments are downright backwards, beyond dangerous, and the result of sheer ignorance or, even worse, malignance.

Here’s another one, by a person who’s featured in this newsletter quite a few times in the recent past.

The current administration’s disdain for the general public was on full display yesterday, March 11, at the 2026 Infrastructure Summit organized by BlackRock, the largest asset manager on Planet Earth.

One of the featured speakers was Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, who managed to say that Americans who want to protect their public lands and waters are “financially illiterate.”

I’ve written a couple of articles about Burgum before—he’s said and done some really questionable things during his 14-month tenure so far, including that “buying Greenland for $5 billion could be a bargain”—but this is, by far, the most offensive.

There’s a lot to unpack here, but let’s start with Burgum’s statements during a conversation with one of the summit’s hosts.

“Congress has been unable to pass permitting reform legislation,” the host said to Burgum. “So if legislation continues to stall […] what can the administration do to streamline this process from your perspective?”

“I mean, we view the private sector as our partners,” Burgum answered. “We use your investment, and your skill, your technology, your teams in partnership.”

We just got started, but here’s where the privatization alarms already start going off.

“And most Americans understand this: when we do a lease sale, we get revenue. People treat lease sales, you know, like if we ban them, we’re going to save the world, as opposed to when we actually get money in, that begins a relationship, a long-term partnership, which then will also have a revenue stream from royalties going forward,” Burgum said, once again confirming his view of public lands as assets on a balance sheet, which he literally during his Senate confirmation hearing.

“You know, all the people that are trying to stop activity on federal lands, you don’t understand the financial impact of it. I mean, all of you are financially literate,” Burgum said to the audience filled with politicians and CEOs, “wouldn’t it be great if we could have the world be a little more financially literate?”

“When we have the prior president, you know, with a stroke of a pen, take six and a half million acres of prime offshore, you know, out of, out of the things,” Burgum mumbled, “legally not holding lease sales, but then separately says, this is like a marine sanctuary. We were able to reverse that.”

“But when that went out, like—oh everyone applauded—oh look at the great stuff they’re doing. Marine sanctuary, six and a half million acres of prime development area,” Burgum complained about protecting marine ecosystems.

“Nobody wrote an article that said ‘wow, they just wiped a trillion dollars off the balance sheet with that thing’,” the Interior Secretary said. “They took action, which took away an asset that belonged to all of you.” he said, facing a room chock-full of infrastructure developers, energy tycoons, and AI company CEOs.

Should I even point out that glaring fact: that he—literally—said that our public lands and waters belong to the captains of industry, and not to the American public?

Also, Mr. Burgum, the reason no one wrote an article criticizing the creation of a marine sanctuary is because no one actually opposes this. Except for, of course, your industry friends.

Although not surprising whatsoever, Secretary Burgum’s claim that American people who love public lands are “financially illiterate” is beyond offensive. It should infuriate everyone who visits, enjoys, and recreates on public lands and waters.

It should make the blood boil of the 330+ million visitors who explore America’s national parks every year. It should enrage the hunters and anglers who immerse themselves in America’s national forests. It should incense all public land users, whether you’re a kayaker, mountain biker, photographer, wildlife enthusiast, bird watcher, camper, or hiker.

The conversation then went further into the permitting process for leases or other extractive activities on public lands—“we are choking our own economic growth because of permitting.”

Burgum’s entire rant against responsible conservation-focused public land management was over five minutes long. (I’ve added the video below.)

About halfway through his tirade, the Secretary of the Interior blasted NGOs—conservation organizations, in other words—for pushing back against his one-sided development agenda.

At one point, while railing against environmental laws, he got so upset he forgot the correct name of the Endangered Species Act, calling it the “Environmental Species Act.” You read that right.

Okay, let’s address some things here, shall we?

(1) First, Burgum appears very frustrated by the federal permitting process, complaining that energy development and oil leases take too long to get approved. While that may or may not be true, it’s important to emphasize that the Republicans still control both the House and the Senate, hold the Presidency, and—if they wanted to—should have been able to pass laws to streamline that very permitting process.

Additionally—and this is also very much worth pointing out—it was Burgum himself who almost single-handedly halted virtually all renewable energy projects nationwide last year.

“Solar and wind energy projects must now get Interior Secretary Doug Burgum’s personal sign-off to receive permits across the hundreds of millions of federal acres under his department’s control,” POLITICO reported on July 15, 2025. “The Interior directive puts wind and solar projects under heightened scrutiny, potentially slowing approvals and construction across vast swaths of some of the most sun- and wind-rich portions of the country.”

That didn’t exactly speed things up now, did it? Hypocrisy, maybe?

“It absolutely will create so much bureaucratic process that no solar or wind projects are likely to move in a timely and efficient manner, if at all,” said Eric Breightel, former Executive Director of the Federal Permitting Council under then-President Joe Biden. “For an administration so focused on eliminating unnecessary roadblocks, this is a clear attempt to use ‘the process’ to kill projects.”

(2) Second, Burgum claims that public lands advocates are “financially illiterate” because they don’t like some of their pristine landscapes and wildlife habitat being transformed into oilfields, mines, clearcuts, or AI data centers.

Rhetorical question: do you think Burgum realizes how much natural spaces and intact ecosystems actually contribute to the U.S. economy in terms of tourism, recreation, clean air and water, and basic human health?

In fact, we can put an actual value on outdoor recreation, thanks to the work of the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA).

In a report published just last week, on March 5, the BEA showed that the outdoor recreation economy contributed $1.3 trillion to the country’s GDP in 2024. That’s 2.4% of the GDP. Outdoor recreation also supported more than 5 million jobs nationwide.

Conventional outdoor recreation—such as boating, fishing, hunting, RVing, skiing, biking, hiking, and camping—was responsible for a total of just over $370 billion in gross annual output. Those are activities that primarily, though not exclusively, take place on public lands and waters.

Here are some concrete financial examples just to illustrate how economically valuable outdoor activities are:

• Kayaking contributed $657 million in gross output to the GDP in 2024

• Snowboarding contributed $3.5 billion

• Cycling contributed $5.4 billion

• Horseback riding contributed $11.7 billion

• Climbing, hiking, and camping contributed $13.1 billion

• Fishing contributed $15.6 billion

• Hunting, shooting, and trapping contributed $26.7 billion

Crucially, those activities are possible thanks to what the report calls “supporting outdoor recreation,” which includes everything from construction and transportation to lodging, food and beverages, and souvenir shopping. Those things, much of which would not exist without the presence of public lands, contributed an enormous $642 billion to the GDP.

Additionally, as I wrote about last November, another report from the Outdoor Recreation Roundtable showed that outdoor recreation specifically on public lands and waters alone contributes more than $350 million to the U.S. economy every single day. That’s $14.6 million per hour, 24/7 throughout the entire year.

So, are public lands users and defenders “financially illiterate” because they’d rather spend their hard-earned dollars—which are now, of course, worth less due to ongoing inflation and rising prices—on spending time outdoors? Are they?

Does Secretary Burgum consider Native Americans who want to protect their traditional way of life and save their hunting grounds to be financially irresponsible? Does he?

Do people misunderstand “the financial impact” of stopping extractive “activity on federal lands” because they’d rather immerse themselves in nature, observe wildlife, buy a national park mug, challenge themselves on a strenuous hike, fuel up at a local restaurant, clear their minds while casting a line in a stream, support a local river guide, or camp under a light-pollution-free night sky? Do they?

I’d like to think Americans are very conscious about what they spend their money on. And outdoor recreation, on public lands and waters, appears to be a significant priority.

(3) Third, the 2026 Infrastructure Summit at which Secretary Burgum called us “financially illiterate” was held by BlackRock. This is important.

BlackRock is the world’s largest asset manager—in plain English, that means it’s the largest investment firm on the planet.

It oversees about $12.5 to 13.5 trillion in assets, which include shares in major multinationals like Amazon and Microsoft; stakes in infrastructure like data centers, transportation, and energy development; and the management of investments of institutions and even governments.

For comparison—and this may be shocking: if BlackRock was a nation, it would be the third wealthiest in the world, after only the United States and China. According to data from the World Bank Group, the third wealthiest country right now is Germany, which has a GDP of about $4.7 trillion.

Let that sink in: BlackRock, one single company, is worth at least 2.6 times the third wealthiest nation on Earth.

And that is the company U.S Interior Secretary Doug Burgum was complaining to about how people want protected landscapes, wildlife, clear air, and clean waters. It’s absolutely outrageous, frankly.

(4) Fourth and last, it’s also absolutely worth taking a look at all the “featured speakers” at BlackRock’s 2026 Infrastructure Summit yesterday, March 11. Unsurprisingly, this is a company that has quite a few U.S. Senators in its pocket, several of whom attended this summit.

I wanted to call out Senator Steve Daines (R-MT) specifically, because now that he’s announced his retirement from national politics last week—which he did just hours after voting to advance Steve Pearce’s nomination for BLM director—he now appears to be setting himself up for a cozy position at some multinational. With his accountability toward his constituents essentially gone, I don’t expect him to support any conservation or public lands bills going forward.

Another politician I wanted to point your attention to is Senator Catherine Cortez-Masto (D-NV). Although her voting record is generally pro-conservation, you should know that she recently introduced a bill in Congress that would privatize tens of thousands of acres of public lands near Las Vegas to be developed. The fact that she was a speaker at the BlackRock Infrastructure Summit is telling.

Here’s the full list of speakers. You may recognize some names—and you’ll definitely recognize some companies. You can draw your own conclusions about whether or not these are people who care about the environment, public lands, waters, and wildlife.

• Larry Fink, Chairman and CEO of BlackRock

• Bayo Ogunlesi, Chairman and CEO of Global Infrastructure Partners

• Doug Burgum, Secretary of the Interior and Chairman of the National Energy Dominance Council

• Sean Duffy, Secretary of Transportation

• Chris Wright, Secretary of Energy

• Gretcher Whitmer, Governor of Michigan

• Mark Warner, U.S. Senator from Virginia

• Steve Daines, U.S. Senator from Montana

• Catherine Cortez-Masto, U.S. Senator from Nevada

• Todd Young, U.S. Senator from Indiana

• David McCormick, U.S. Senator from Pennsylvania

• Mike Wirth, Chairman and CEO of Chevron

• John Ketchum, Chairman, President, and CEO of NextEra Energy

• Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI

• Carol B. Tomé, CEO of UPS

• Ruth Porat, President and CIO of Alphabet and Google

• Dina Powell McCormick, President and Vice Chairman of Meta

• David Long, CEO of the National Electrical Contractors Association

• Sean McGarvey, President of North America’s Building Trades Unions

• Sean M. O’Brien, General President of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters

• Mike Rowe, mikeroweWORKS Foundation

“We need your voices pushing on Congress for permitting reform,” Secretary Burgum urged the audience, which included the people listed above. “You’ve got a lot at stake. Let’s go get it done.”

I think it goes beyond saying that we, the people—the American taxpayers who actually own the federal public lands and waters Burgum so desperately wants to plunder—have much more at stake here. We have much more to lose.

This has been yet another eye-opening episode in the public lands saga we’ve found ourselves in for over a year now. It’s obvious that the fight to defend our shared lands is only going to get more intense.

Let’s make sure we’re ready. Let’s keep pushing back. Let’s keep supporting the wonderful organizations that work to safeguard laws like the “Environmental Species Act” [eye roll].

But importantly, let’s also make sure we get outside! Let’s ensure we set aside time to actually enjoy the very public lands and waters we’re spending so much time and energy on to defend.

Watch Burgum’s remarks below:

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Thanks for helping to protect our public lands and waters!

See you out there,

Bram