President-elect Donald Trump said his administration will “dramatically” increase baseload power generation, which “will reduce the cost of electrical bills that continue to skyrocket.”

• North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum, a Republican, will run the newly formed National Energy Council and will be nominated to lead the Department of Interior, President-elect Donald Trump said Friday.
• The energy council will include federal departments and agencies involved with permitting, regulating, producing, generating, distributing and transporting energy, Trump said in a statement. The council will focus on cutting red tape, boosting private sector investment and “innovation over longstanding, but totally unnecessary, regulation,” Trump said.
• Trump said his administration will “undo the damage done by the Democrats” to the U.S. electric grid by “dramatically” increasing baseload power. “This will reduce the cost of Electrical bills that continue to skyrocket for Citizens and Small Businesses under Biden-Harris, and ensure that America has the power to serve all of our needs without the devastation of blackouts and brownouts, and to WIN the battle for A.I. superiority, which is key to National Security and our Nation’s Prosperity,” he said.

The National Energy Council will foster coordination among federal agencies to advance American energy, Burgum said in a press release. “Focusing on innovation over regulation to solve the nation’s challenges will allow us to smartly expand American energy and make our world cleaner and safer by selling energy to our friends and allies versus them having to buy it from our adversaries,” he said.

Burgum has had an “all-of-the-above” energy policy in North Dakota, according to a 2021 press release from the governor. That year, he set a goal of making North Dakota carbon-neutral by 2030, partly by using carbon capture, hydrogen and biofuels.

During a visit from Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm, Burgum “stressed the importance of innovation over regulation to maintain U.S. energy independence and security and encourage innovation and investment into solutions that will allow for a continued all-of-the-above energy approach that includes coal, oil and gas,” the press release stated.

Coal-fired power plants produced 55% of North Dakota’s electricity generation last year, followed by wind, which generated 36%, according to the Energy Information Administration. North Dakota, with about 4 GW of wind, ranked sixth among states for the share of its electricity generated from wind, the EIA said. The state is in the Midcontinent Independent System Operator footprint. It exports about half the power it produces, according to the EIA.

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