Interior Secretary Doug Burgum emerged from a meeting with oil and gas executives Wednesday to denounce an “onslaught” of regulation, saying the United States needs to permit critical infrastructure faster as the race to power artificial intelligence heats up.
“Right now, we’re in an AI arms race with China,” Burgum told reporters gathered outside the White House after he joined President Donald Trump to talk with industry leaders.
“China is building enormous amounts of electricity — we’ve been shutting down baseload electricity in our country while they’ve been adding it,” he added. “And this is a real existential threat to our country.”
The meeting between Trump and leaders of some of the nation’s largest oil and gas companies showed the importance of fossil fuels to an administration that has said it wants the industry to “drill, baby, drill.” Burgum on Wednesday said there’s also a need to “build, baby, build.” But corporate leaders have raised concerns in recent weeks about the potential impact of both U.S. tariffs on foreign goods and the administration’s interest in lower oil prices.
