Mar-a-Lago Club, 11 April, 2024. The exclusive resort in Palm Beach, Florida, is hosting a very important fundraiser for Donald Trump. The final rush of the election campaign requires money and the US oil and gas sector is an appealing bite. According to a reconstruction by the Washington Post, Trump allegedly promised the fossil industry executives in attendance to dismantle the Biden administration's green policies in exchange for billion-dollar donations for his campaign. A quid pro quo resulted in an investigation launched last May by the Senate Budget and Finance Committee to shed light on the affair.
A billion dollars to demolish Biden's green policies
The guest list includes Mike Sabel, founder of the liquefied gas company Venture Global, delegates from Chevron, Exxon Mobil, Occidental Petroleum, and the billionaire Harold Hamm, chairman of Continental Resources, who, according to sources compiled by the Washington Post, is the point of contact between fossil industry interests and the Republican presidential candidate's ambitions in November. According to Trump, a billion-dollar deal is a good deal for everyone, first and foremost for big oil, which, with him in the White House, would no longer have to worry about environmental regulations and taxes.
At the Mar-a-Lago dinner, Trump reportedly promised to cancel the stop on permits for new liquefied natural gas (LNG) exports, a top priority for executives; lift restrictions on drilling in Alaska; and cancel the ambitious rules for the reduction of vehicle exhaust emissions. According to the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the regulation will prevent the emission of 7.2 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide through 2055. A possible repeal of the regulation on the one hand would please the fossil fuel producers, but on the other hand would probably irritate the car industry, which is investing billions of dollars in electrification, also thanks to the incentives of the Inflation Reduction Act.
Making American Energy Dominant Again pleases the fossil fuel industry
The differences between Trump’s and Biden’s climate agendas could not be more stark. The current US president, who for the presidential race handed over the baton of the Democratic Party to Kamala Harris, immediately reinstated the country as a signatory to the Paris Agreement, calling global warming an ‘existential threat’. Over the past three years, the Biden administration has enacted more than 100 new environmental regulations aimed at reducing air pollution, greenhouse gas emissions, and toxic chemicals.
On the other hand, Trump has often denied and downplayed the effects of the climate crisis, weakening or cancelling some 125 environmental regulations during his term (2016-2020). For Trump, the Green Deal is nothing more than a gift to China. Make American Energy Dominant Again is his idea of energy security, consisting of US-made gas and oil and definitely not of wind power, which at the Mar-a-Lago Club dinner was repeatedly described as unreliable, unattractive and harmful to the environment.
Despite the oil industry's complaints about Biden's policies, the US is now producing more oil than any other country in the world, pumping an average of almost 13 million barrels per day. Last year, ExxonMobil and Chevron, the largest US energy companies, reported the highest profits in a decade: $36 billion and $21.4 billion respectively.
Fossil fuel rallying behind Donald Trump
A month after the event in Palm Beach, on 23 May, a fundraiser was organised in Houston by oil billionaires Jeff Hildebrand, founder of Hilcorp Energy, George Bishop, founder of GeoSouthern Energy, and Kelcy Warren, head of the pipeline company Energy Transfer Partners. According to witnesses, Trump got a standing ovation when he promised, if elected, to build more pipelines and to restore fracking (hydraulic fracturing to extract natural gas and oil from shale rock) in areas where Biden banned it. A Trump campaign official said the event raised at least $15 million, other sources say 40. According to OpenSecrets data, so far the fossil industry has contributed more than $20.3 million to the Trump campaign, pro-Trump super PACs and the Republican National Committee. Super PACs are organisations that cannot donate directly to candidates' campaigns but can raise and spend any amount to support them indirectly.
“Time and time again, both Mr. Trump and the U.S. oil and gas industry have proved they are willing to sell out Americans to pad their own pockets. As Mr. Trump funnels campaign money into his businesses and uses it as a slush fund to pay his legal fees, Big Oil has been lobbying aggressively to protect and expand its profits at the expense of the American taxpayer.” Senate Finance Committee Chairman Ron Wyden (Dem Senator, Oregon) and Senate Budget Committee Chairman Sheldon Whitehouse (Dem Senator, Rhode Island) wrote in a statement launching the investigation. Meanwhile, Trump’s motto Drill, Baby, Drill excites US oil companies and the November vote is becoming increasingly polarised, even on climate.
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Cover image: Donald Trump by Gage Skidmore, Flickr