Interior Secretary Doug Burgum is throwing the Trump administration's fossil-fuel focus into sharp relief.

Why it matters: Burgum's testimony over two days on the Hill shows just how little the administration thinks of wind and solar.

• He has a central role in drawing up energy policy as chair of the White House National Energy Dominance Council.

Driving the news: In appearances before House and Senate appropriators, Burgum talked up coal and emphasized the unreliability of renewables.

• "Clean American coal is a triple win for our country," he told senators this morning, citing "reliable and affordable baseload power," metallurgical coal and the potential for coal mines to be tapped for rare earths.
• He emphasized that wind and solar are "intermittent" — underscoring the emerging GOP argument on reliability.

Between the lines: His testimony came at a tense moment for clean-energy developers. The Trump administration just allowed Empire Wind to continue construction offshore, but Republicans are eyeing cuts to the IRA's clean energy incentives.

• "If Congress decided to eliminate subsidies for wind, then there would be no applications for wind projects," Burgum said in an exchange with Rep. Chellie Pingree yesterday. "They've had 30 years of subsidies, and they've never made money, and they're not going to make money."
• At the same time, the vast majority of projects in interconnection queues today are wind, solar and battery storage. Changing that could be a big policy lift for the Trump administration.

The big picture: Like other Cabinet secretaries, Burgum faced some bipartisan pushback on the budget, particularly proposed cuts to Indian services and the National Park Service.

• Sen. Lisa Murkowski, the agency's top Senate appropriator, raised concerns about cuts to USGS science and mapping programs.
• She also questioned requested reductions for the BLM, Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement and Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement.
• "It causes me to wonder, are we going to be able to accomplish what we're all seeking to accomplish together?" she said.

Burgum also defended staff cuts at the Park Service, which have caused political headaches for the agency and uproar in the conservation community.

• Senate Appropriations Ranking Member Patty Murray said at one point that Burgum had "managed to fire the only plumber at Mount Rainier National Park."
• Burgum replied that he's trying to eliminate "back office, IT and HR roles."
• "There's an opportunity to have more people working in our parks … and less people working for the National Park Service," he said.

Senate EPW Chair Shelley Moore Capito pressed EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin today to ensure that states continue to receive water funding that's targeted in the Trump budget.

Why it matters: The first question from a top GOP senator highlighted discomfort among Republicans with some of the more aggressive cuts — even at the much-maligned EPA — that the White House seeks.

Zoom in: The EPA budget blueprint released this month proposed to eliminate nearly $2.5 billion from the EPA's Clean and Drinking Water State Revolving Loan Funds — roughly 90% of its budget.

• West Virginia would see a "dramatic cut" from $36 million to $4 million, Capito pointed out.
• Zeldin explained that congressional earmarks have pulled money out of the loan funds, and the cuts are intended to return the program to its intended design of providing seed money for states to set up their own programs.
• But Capito said the cuts would mean that "not only would there be no money for this congressionally directed spending, there's not going to be enough money to sustain these projects into the future. I am concerned about it."

Questioning from Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, the panel's top Democrat, devolved into a shouting match over whether Zeldin personally approved individual EPA grant cuts.

• Whitehouse interrogated Zeldin on court testimony from an EPA employee that Zeldin wasn't involved in individual grant reviews.
• The employee testified that he, not Zeldin, had made the cuts in one day, "so you can't now come and say that that's false," Whitehouse said.
• Zeldin yelled that Whitehouse "doesn't care about the facts" and added: "You don't care about wasting money — but the Trump administration does, senator."

Our thought bubble: Zeldin's combativeness showed the very reasons Trump picked him.

✅ 1. Energy noms advance: ENR voted to advance four Energy and Interior nominees: Conner Prochaska to be ARPA-E director; Tina Pierce to be the DOE's chief financial officer; Jonathan Brightbill to be DOE's general counsel; and Ned Mamula to be USGS director at Interior.

⛏️ 2. Diving deep: Interior said it was evaluating a mineral lease sale in waters off American Samoa — the first such action by Interior in over 30 years and which could pave the way for deep-sea minerals mining.

🌊 3. Blue state blues: The Trump administration is cutting funding for flood prevention projects in blue states across the country while creating new water construction opportunities in red states, CNN reported.

• The reported move comes as the Energy Department weighs cutting the bulk of its funding to blue states.