Interior Secretary Doug Burgum rarely misses a chance to name-check former President Theodore Roosevelt — or to highlight his legacy as the nation’s preeminent conservationist.
As Republican governor of North Dakota, Burgum commanded efforts to secure a presidential library for the famous Rough Rider, and put at least $1 million of his own funds into the project. He quoted Roosevelt at the Republican National Convention in 2024, and in his confirmation hearing in January he praised the nation’s 26th president for establishing “the ethic for conservation for our country.”
But at the helm of the Interior Department during President Donald Trump’s second administration, Burgum could find himself part of a push to dismantle a key Roosevelt legacy: the conservation of public lands as national monuments.
For decades, Republicans in the West have questioned the size of monuments created by Democratic and some GOP presidents, saying they “lock up” too much land that could be available for energy development or other uses. Trump took up that cause in his first term and appears poised to do so again, potentially starting off with two California monuments created in early January by former President Joe Biden.
Ted Roosevelt V, board member of the Trust for Public Land and the great-great-grandson of the former president, said Burgum isn’t faking his Roosevelt veneration.
“He is not a fan of Theodore Roosevelt as a recent political cover. This is something that he believes deeply,” he said.
Roosevelt V, who worked extensively with Burgum on establishing his ancestor’s presidential library, acknowledged that Burgum will face a challenge in striking a balance between Trump’s declaration of a “national energy emergency” and preserving public lands for generations to come.
“It is impossible to be a fan of Theodore Roosevelt and not to be a fan of conservation at large,” Roosevelt V said. “The nuances of that are, of course, going to be critically important, but the baseline of understanding conservation, I believe, Secretary Burgum certainly understands and cares deeply about.”
Burgum has not commented on the recent potential targeting of previous monument designations by Trump. The Interior Department deferred questions to the White House, which also did not comment.
For conservationists, Burgum’s conflicting messaging has created “an atmosphere of confusion,” said Kristen Brengel, senior vice president of government affairs for the National Parks Conservation Association.
“Interior Secretary Burgum has given mixed signals on national parks and national monuments,” she said. “On one hand, he understands they should be protected. On the other hand, national monuments have been included in his energy order as places this administration may seek energy.”
What kind of conservation?
During his first term in office, Trump took aim at dozens of national monuments created by his predecessors, piggybacking on GOP criticisms that the sites are too expansive and restrict activities like off-road vehicle recreation, grazing or mining.
Trump ordered then-Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke to review monuments created from the Clinton administration. Ultimately, Trump zeroed in on two Utah monuments — slashing more than 2 million acres from the Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante monuments — along with removing protections from an Atlantic Ocean site.
“I’ve talked to Burgum about it,” Zinke said in a recent interview. “My recommendation is go off what President Trump previously looked at.”
Over the weekend, the current Trump administration appeared to be heading in that direction, publishing a fact sheet on its website Friday implying the president was poised to reverse national monument designations for nearly 1 million acres of public land. That language was taken down the next day, but both The New York Times and The Washington Post reported that the recently designated Chuckwalla and Sáttítla Highlands national monuments would be on the chopping block.
In his own first days in office in February, Burgum tucked directions for a potential review of national monuments into a series of secretarial orders aimed at “unleashing American energy” on public lands. Interior oversees more than 500 million acres of land and 700 million acres of subsurface minerals.
The document directed Burgum’s deputies to outline how “to review and, as appropriate, revise” national monuments created under the Antiquities Act of 1906.
The missive drew pushback from conservation groups, which accused Burgum of “hiding” the directive by referring to it only via its place in the Federal Code, rather than the law’s commonly used name.
Burgum has also drawn criticism for referring to public lands as “a bunch of assets” that could be utilized to pay down the national debt or to create a sovereign wealth fund.
But in recent remarks at the National Congress of American Indians, Burgum clarified he was not referring to national parks, national monuments or Native American lands, but Bureau of Land Management acreage and the Agriculture Department’s Forest Service lands.
“I’m not talking about our most precious places,” Burgum said. “I’m not talking about any of that. I’m talking about the fact that we’ve got 500 million acres of land that are in public hands that were put away for the benefit and the use of the American public.”
That assessment aligns with how others who have worked with Burgum described his view of conservation.
North Dakota GOP Sen. Kevin Cramer, who introduced his fellow statesman at his confirmation hearing, said he is “not just an oil man from an oil- and gas-producing state” but “first and foremost a conservationist.”
Roosevelt V similarly offered that Burgum may have a “less pristine” view of conservation, but seems committed to balancing extractive uses with preservation for future generations.
“He’s not a strict conservationist in the sense that things need to be preserved under a glass bubble, but he is a conservationist in understanding the value of the natural resources that we have, and that sometimes that value is in extracting minerals from those resources in a way that’s responsible and sustainable,” Roosevelt V said.
He added: “Whether he’s able to strike that balance going forward with the urgency of a national energy emergency and continue to preserve the land for generations yet to come, is yet to be seen. But I would say in the context of the Trump administration, I think Gov. Burgum is as good as you’re going to get in that role.”
Mark Squillace, a former Interior Department lawyer during the Clinton administration who’s provided legal testimony in the federal lawsuits over the Utah national monuments, said Burgum may face a challenge in reducing the size of national monuments, or in attempting to eliminate them, because many are supported by Native American governments or activists. For his part, Burgum has professed a commitment to working closely with tribal governments and was endorsed for the Interior secretary position by 180 Native American tribes.
“Burgum has a reputation, I don’t know if it’s deserved or not, [for] being close to Native American communities in North Dakota,” Squillace said. “Now some of those communities are oil and gas developers, and so maybe that explains some of that, but I’ve always been sort of curious about what Burgum’s view is about the Antiquities Act and national monuments.”
Roosevelt and the Antiquities Act
The great debate about the Antiquities Act centers on whether it was meant to allow presidents to safeguard vast landscapes or protect more limited treasures and places.
At his confirmation hearing, Burgum told the Senate Energy and Natural Resources panel that the 1906 law signed by Roosevelt himself was meant for “Indiana Jones-type archaeological protections,” Burgum continued, stating it is “essential that we protect these areas as a country, and that’s what the law was intended. … I just think it’s important that we strike the right balance.”
The Antiquities Act allows presidents to set aside areas of existing federal lands to protect areas of cultural, historic or scientific value.
Frank McManamon, former chief archaeologist of the National Park Service, noted in a 2010 research paper that while Roosevelt did not weigh in on the “legislative crafting” of the Antiquities Act himself, as a leader of the Progressive Era, “his overall executive and legislative philosophy supported those working on the law.”
As the first president to utilize the act, Roosevelt would ultimately influence his successors in the White House, McManamon wrote in the Theodore Roosevelt Association Journal, “His proclamations included a wide range of sizes and of kinds of resources protected.”
Roosevelt would use the law — which became his sole option to protect public lands after Congress dismantled the Forest Reserve Act in 1907 — 18 times to set aside a total of 1.5 million acres as part of national monuments.
Roosevelt began with the 1,350-acre Devils Tower National Monument in Wyoming; added small sites like the160-acre Montezuma Castle in Arizona; and ended by setting aside more than 600,000 acres at Mount Olympus, which is now the Olympic National Park.
Perhaps his most notable creation would be the 1908 designation of the more than 800,000-acre Grand Canyon National Monument, now part of the Grand Canyon National Park.
The Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library highlights the site in a nine-page lesson plan offered on its website.
“Keep the Grand Canyon of Arizona as it is,” Roosevelt said in a 1903 speech, during his first visit to what was then the Arizona Territory. “We have gotten past the stage, my fellow citizens, when we are to be pardoned if we simply treat any part of our country as something to be skinned for two or three years for the use of the present generation. Whether it is the forest, the water, the scenery, whatever it is, handle it so that your children’s children will get the benefit of it. Handle it that way.”
Roosevelt went on to press Congress in back-to-back State of the Union addresses in 1904 and 1905 to establish a national park to protect the canyon from developers, before opting to do so himself in 1908. Arizona would become a state in 1912.
That designation would face legal challenges, but ultimately the Supreme Court would decide in the president’s favor, and set a long-standing precedent giving the White House expansive power under the law.
In his 1913 self-titled autobiography, Roosevelt mentions the “Monuments Act” only in passing, listing it among a series of laws that “preserve[d] from destruction beautiful and wonderful wild creatures whose existence was threatened by greed and wantonness.”
“During the seven and half years closing on March 4, 1909, more was accomplished for the protection of wild life [sic] in the United States than during all the previous years, excepting only the creation of Yellowstone National Park,” Roosevelt wrote.
In a meeting of the North Dakota Industrial Commission in December — which includes the state’s governor, agriculture commissioner and attorney general — Burgum warned that national monuments created late in a president’s term can serve as “land grabs” to limit the “multiple uses” of federal lands.
“Generally monuments and parks you can’t even access them through a horizontal [drilling site] even though you’re not touching a leaf on the surface, you can’t access those minerals,” Burgum said. “We’re stripping the American public of access to their own balance sheet.”
He also specifically questioned the size of the proposed Maah Daah Hey National Monument, pushed by Native American tribes in the state, noting it could impact “energy development” on the lands.
“If nothing else we should be fighting back against this land grab through monument,” Burgum said.
During Burgum’s tenure as North Dakota’s top elected official, the state also joined in a lawsuit filed by Utah officials that sought to seize control of federal lands within its borders. The Supreme Court last month declined to take up that case.
Still, Burgum himself has touted the importance of preserving large landscapes when promoting the Roosevelt library, the most visible legacy of his time in office.
“One hundred years from now, there’s going to be a lot of stuff in North Dakota that may not be here,” Burgum told the magazine Mountain Outlaw in December 2022. “But the Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library is still going to be here 100 years from now, and so is the national park. And 100 years from now you’re going to walk out and you’re going see the same view that TR saw the day that he got off that train the first time he got here. That connection with the preserved landscape is going to be a powerful, powerful part of his legacy.”
Aaron Weiss, with the environmental group Center for Western Priorities, said the question of how Burgum approaches public land protections will depend on whether he becomes a hands-on leader of the department’s myriad issues or focuses on national energy goals while letting his deputies control the rest.
Burgum has been tapped as an energy czar for the Trump administration, and is leading a newly created National Energy Dominance Council. He also holds a seat on the National Security Council. He’s trumpeted Trump’s commitment to ramping up energy production — particularly fossil fuel development — since taking office in a series of interviews with conservative media outlets, championing how the government can get the electricity to fuel artificial intelligence technologies, boost liquid natural gas exports and bring back a “mining culture” in the U.S. He’s said little in those interviews about specific Interior policies on deck and nothing about shrinking national monuments.
“There is a world in which Doug Burgum shows up determined to help the oil and gas industry — we know that’s going to happen — and then basically offloads the rest of it and does not really care about the nuances of ranching policy or endangered species or national park management, aside from Teddy Roosevelt,” Weiss said. “Then there’s a world in which Doug Burgum, who has been a manager of large organizations before, shows up and decides to get into the weeds.”
The Interior Department declined to comment for this story.
Asked about changing the size of existing national monuments by Democratic Sens. Martin Heinrich of New Mexico and Ron Wyden of Oregon in written questions during Burgum’s confirmation process, Burgum committed little beyond expressing his belief that Trump had that right.
“Ultimately, the Antiquities Act of 1906 grants the President the authority to designate or change monument boundaries,” Burgum wrote. “Should a decision be made by the President related to a national monument, I will follow all applicable laws.”
To those that know him, Burgum’s affinity for Roosevelt is personal as much, if not more, than it is political.
Robbie Lauf, a former Burgum political adviser turned executive director of the Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library, said his former boss closely identifies with Roosevelt.
Recognized today as a rugged individual, such as his role with the Rough Riders cavalry regiment in the Spanish-American War, Roosevelt first arrived in North Dakota on a bison hunting trip as a young, bespectacled, New York intellectual. Still, Lauf noted that didn’t stop him from posing for a portrait holding a rifle and donning a custom-made, tasseled Western outfit.
But Roosevelt was drawn to the culture he witnessed in North Dakota, and it shaped the rest of his life. He invested in a ranching outfit in the region and formed the hunting club Boone and Crockett, which would advocate for preservation of forest habitats for wildlife and helped pave the way for a later act of Congress to protect the wildlife of Yellowstone National Park.
Roosevelt returned to North Dakota in 1884 to heal, after his young wife and mother died on the same day. Burgum, too, lost family at a young age — his father, a former Navy officer in World War II, died when Burgum was still a teenager.
“Doug Burgum is a North Dakota boy who connects so deeply, like a lot of us do, to the fact that Teddy Roosevelt was molded in this place that molded us,” Lauf said.
Correction: An earlier version of this report misidentified the Trust for Public Land.
