Mining and energy jobs offer a “sure-fire, long-term career,” Interior Secretary Doug Burgum said during an event with Breitbart News on Monday.
Burgum spoke about the mantra “drill, baby, drill” as well as “map, baby, map,” explaining that lands across the country managed by the Department of the Interior were “put away for the benefit the use of the American people.”
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“And there are things that we protect exclusively – wilderness areas, national parks, wildlife refuges – those are completely off limits. But the other piece, which is like 90 percent of it was put away for the benefit the use of the American people, and that means that we’ve got to not just ‘drill, baby, drill,’ but we also have to ‘map, baby, map,’ because the mapping leads the exploration,” Burgum explained, pointing to “incredible mapping successes.” He highlighted one recent success in Appalachia – a mine that he said very well could have “300 years equivalent of the lithium that we import from foreign countries right here in the United States that could be easily accessible.”
“Didn’t even know it was there,” he said, pointing to the lie of past administrations that embraced the fantasy that mining was no longer needed.
Interior Secretary Doug Burgum speaks with Breitbart News Washington Bureau Chief Matthew Boyle during a policy discussion on Monday, May 11, 2026, titled “Harnessing American Power.” (Matthew Perdie/Breitbart News)
“And we killed the mining industry, just like we killed the forest industry… all of these things that are beneficial to not just from a revenue standpoint, but good for habitat. So great progress getting the USGS … U.S. Geological Survey, part of Interior, back on track. They’re back mapping like crazy. And then we are getting mining going,” he said, emphasizing the importance of mining roaring back and identifying it as a fruitful career.
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“We’ll graduate 36,000 lawyers in America this year. Will graduate about 300 mining and metallurgical candidates. … If you know anybody that wants to have a sure-fire, long-term career, you know, in a place where everybody that’s in that field is retiring, because they’re all Baby Boomers, is go into that,” he said, noting he visited a handful of the remaining mining schools in America, praising them for having “fabulous programs going on” and “amazing technology.”
He continued, “It’s not what you think of in some old movie of hard rock mining. I mean, this is high, high, high-tech capability, you know.”
Burgum said he will meet seniors who have several job offers, noting how small the class sizes are and how few schools there are.
“So anyway, making progress, trying to revive that, because we’ve got a huge exposure to China on critical minerals. And so again, across the front, we feel like we’re making progress on all these, but lot of way to go,” Burgum added.
WATCH the event below:
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