- Trump raises record funds from oil industry
- Promises deregulation, fossil fuel support if elected
- Democrats criticize fossil fuel influence in politics
Donald Trump has raised more money from the oil and gas industry than at any point during his previous presidential campaigns. A surge in fossil fuel funding occurred in the six months since he directly requested $1 billion from oil executives and then promised to repeal environmental regulations if elected.
While the Republican nominee hasn’t quite reached the $1 billion mark, he has earned $14.1 million from the oil and gas business through August 31, according to donation filings. This is more than he received from the sector over the same period of his presidential campaigns in 2016 and 2020.
Support from just a few oil executives has become critical to the overall Trump campaign. Kelcy Warren, the billionaire CEO of pipeline operator Energy Transfer, donated nearly $6 million to help elect the former president, and Timothy Dunn, CEO of the Texas-based oil firm CrownQuest, donated $5 million to a Trump-aligned Super Pac.
Harold Hamm, another billionaire and founder of Continental Resources, has contributed an additional $1.2 million to the campaign. Hamm reportedly hit the phones to whip up corporate support for Trump, whose campaign mantra has been “drill, baby, drill” while criticising Joe Biden and Kamala Harris’ policies. We’ve got to do this because it’s the most important election in our lifetime,” Hamm told the crowd.
According to OpenSecrets’ analysis of donations to candidates and their connected groups, the oil and gas business is now Trump’s fourth-largest source of funding, up six spots from the 2020 election season.
Furthermore, more recent Federal Election Commission filings surfaced this week, which are still being thoroughly analysed. However, Climate Power, a climate advocacy group, pointed out that the most recent filings show Trump received another $5 million from Energy Transfer’s Warren in September, as well as $400,000 from Vicki Hollub, CEO of Occidental Petroleum, and $400,000 from Jeff and Melinda Hildebrand of the oil and gas firm Hilcorp.
The fundraising haul follows an April dinner at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago club in Florida, where the former president asked more than 20 executives from companies such as Chevron, Exxon and Occidental for $1 billion and promised, if elected, to remove drilling barriers, scrap a pause on petrol exports and reverse new car pollution-reduction rules.
Democrats have labelled this apparent bargain “the definition of corruption” and requested a congressional inquiry. Last month, Democrats in the Senate and House of Representatives wrote to eight oil firms and the American Petroleum Institute to protest about their “woefully inadequate” responses to a request for information on the alleged quid pro quo.
Trump is literally wearing a ‘for sale’ sign around his neck, and we know the fossil fuel sector is very interested in political influence, so we need to know if this is bravado or the solicitation of a crime, said Sheldon Whitehouse, the Democratic chair of the Senate budget committee. Whitehouse agreed, however, that the inquiry would not be completed before the election.
“Trump talks some very stupid nonsense about climate, just loud noises to the fossil fuel industry that he will be their boy,” according to him. “The industry is getting more desperate to keep a political leash on Congress and government generally so we are seeing a significant step-up in influence and money-seeking.”
In addition to watered-down restrictions, an estimated $110 billion in tax cuts for the fossil fuel industry might be offered if Trump returns to the White House. When he was president, Trump expanded drilling regions and intervened to broker a deal with other countries to reduce production to support crude oil’s value when prices fell during the 2020 COVID epidemic.
In the last two weeks, the former president and his running mate, JD Vance, have attended four fundraisers hosted by oil executives in Texas despite having to cancel other events due to the impact of Hurricanes Helene and Milton. Scientists say both of these hurricanes were exacerbated by global warming caused by the use of fossil fuels.
At recent rallies, Trump has promised to unleash a flood of new oil and gas production, dismissing the climate catastrophe as ‘one of the biggest frauds of all time’. The former president has also wrongly claimed that the world is cooling and has often opposed wind energy, calling it “bullshit” and “horrible.
Trump has referred to oil and gas as “liquid gold under our feet” and accused Biden and Harris of waging a “war on American energy” despite the fact that oil and gas output has reached new highs.
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In contrast, Harris has mainly avoided climate issues in her campaign appearances, although acknowledging the threats presented by global warming. According to OpenSecrets, the Democratic presidential campaign, which Biden initially led, raised $1.3 million from the oil and gas industry.
Industry donations to the vice president account for more than $500,000 of this total since she took over the Democratic candidacy from Biden, despite Harris’ promise in 2019 not to accept more than $200 from fossil fuel entities.
Oil businessmen Richard Slifka of Global Petroleum and Lee Fikes of Bonanza Oil have made the largest gifts to Harris. Harris’s campaign, which has raised more than $1 billion in total donations from all sources, did not respond to concerns about whether accepting this money violated her previous vow or if it still applied to this race.
A Trump campaign official stated that Harris was “controlled by environmental extremists.” Still, Trump was “supported by people who share his vision of American energy dominance to protect our national security and bring down the cost of living for all Americans.”
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