During Doug Burgum’s two terms as North Dakota governor, the state repeatedly sued the U.S. Department of the Interior, attempting to rip up rules that govern federal lands in his state and across the country.

Now, Burgum is poised to oversee that same department as President Donald Trump’s nominee for secretary of the interior. Those lawsuits and a host of others the state launched against the federal government, some of which are ongoing, reveal the worldview he’ll bring to a department that touches nearly every aspect of life in the West. Its agencies oversee water policy, operate the national parks, lease resources to industries including oil and ranching, provide services across Indian Country and manage more land than any person or corporation in the nation.

During his confirmation hearing last week before the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, Burgum portrayed the Interior Department as key to geopolitical power struggles. On energy policy, he said that growing consistently available types of energy production — namely nuclear and climate-warming coal, oil and gas — is a matter of national security; he claimed that greenhouse gas emissions can be mitigated with carbon capture technology that’s unproven at scale; and he argued that renewable energy is too highly subsidized and threatens the electrical grid.

The committee advanced his nomination to the full Senate on Thursday.

While speaking to North Dakota lawmakers about federal actions, Burgum characterized the Biden administration’s environmental policies as “misguided rules and regulations proposed often by overzealous bureaucrats.” The rules, he said, pose “an existential threat to the energy and ag sectors, our economy and our way of life.”