April 23, 2025. Doug Burgum is in Oklahoma City, at a conference hosted by the Harold Hamm Institute for American Energy. That same day, a Continental Resources employee texts Burgum’s aide to confirm a private meeting between Hamm and Burgum, 5 PM, Pearl Mesa room at the Skirvin Hotel.
We don’t know exactly what they talked about. But we know what happened next.
That same day, Burgum announced he planned to open more federal lands to oil, gas and mineral extraction while speeding up the issuance of permits. Not weeks later. That day.
A couple of months after that hotel meeting, a Continental employee emailed a top Interior Department appointee seeking permits for three wells in Converse County, Wyoming, asking BLM to review their applications under the department’s new emergency permitting procedures. Emergency permitting. For a company run by a billionaire who’d donated millions to Trump’s campaigns and now had his old North Dakota Governor buddy whom he also donated large amounts of campaign money to running the Interior Department.
Hamm said the quiet part loud at an industry conference last fall: “It’s a changed world, all of a sudden. You can get permits in Converse County, Wyoming for the first time.”
Now here’s where this gets personal for North Dakota.
In January 2026, Hamm announced Continental would halt Bakken drilling for the first time in more than 30 years. “There’s no need to drill it when margins are basically gone.” The company that helped build the Bakken is pulling up, going to Wyoming, where his friend Doug Burgum had just cleared the path.
This hits every North Dakotan, not just oil patch workers. When oil drops and drilling slows, that means fewer jobs and less tax money flowing into schools, roads and local budgets across the state. Preliminary estimates suggest revenue for the 2027-29 general fund budget will be $700 to $800 million less than the current biennium. Governor Armstrong has already proposed 10% cuts for some agencies and a freeze on new employees and construction. That’s the slow bleed that happens when drilling activity leaves.
This week, Burgum’s Interior Department made it official. On May 11, they killed the Biden-era rule that had given conservation equal footing with energy development on federally managed lands. Hamm benefits directly.
And today, Summit Carbon Solutions announced it’s rerouting its pipeline away from North Dakota following opposition in South Dakota. The new route goes from Iowa and Nebraska to Wyoming where the carbon dioxide can be used in enhanced oil recovery, potentially doubling the amount of oil produced from existing reservoirs. The infrastructure North Dakota corn growers and ethanol producers were hoping for is now pointed at Wyoming. Potentially at Harold Hamm’s expanding operation. In the state where Doug Burgum just rewrote the rules.
Continental argued in a court filing that “the political process, and not the National Environmental Policy Act, provides the appropriate forum” for policy disputes. Translation: we won the politics, so the law shouldn’t stop us.
North Dakota helped make Harold Hamm a billionaire. The Bakken made Continental what it is. And now that Hamm has a friend running federal land policy, the drills are moving to Wyoming, the pipeline is going to Wyoming, and North Dakota is staring at budget cuts.
Doug Burgum used to be our governor. He wanted to appear like he was a fighter for North Dakota. Instead, he’s been clearing the field for the guy who just left.
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