What Trump promised oil CEOs as he asked them to steer $1 billion to his campaign
"buying votes you say?
Donald Trump has pledged to scrap President Biden’s policies on electric vehicles and wind energy, as well as other initiatives opposed by the fossil fuel industry.
By Josh Dawsey and Maxine Joselow Updated May 9, 2024 at 1:54 p.m. EDT|Published May 9, 2024 at 6:00 a.m. EDT
Former president Donald Trump shakes hands with North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum (R), who is leading the Trump campaign’s development of its energy policy, at a rally in Laconia, N.H., on Jan. 22. (Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post)
As Donald Trump sat with some of the country’s top oil executives at his Mar-a-Lago Club last month, one executive complained about how they continued to face burdensome environmental regulations despite spending $400 million to lobby the Biden administration in the last year.
Trump’s response stunned several of the executives in the room overlooking the ocean: You all are wealthy enough, he said, that you should raise $1 billion to return me to the White House. At the dinner, he vowed to immediately reverse dozens of President Biden .. https://www.washingtonpost.com/elections/candidates/joe-biden-2024/?itid=lk_inline_manual_4 ’s environmental rules and policies and stop new ones from being enacted, according to people with knowledge of the meeting, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe a private conversation.
Giving $1 billion would be a “deal,” Trump said, because of the taxation and regulation they would avoid thanks to him, according to the people.
Trump’s remarkably blunt and transactional pitch reveals how the former president is targeting the oil industry to finance his reelection bid. At the same time, he has turned to the industry to help shape his environmental agenda for a second term, including the rollbacks of some of Biden’s signature achievements on clean energy and electric vehicles.
Yet oil giants will see an even greater windfall — helped by new offshore drilling, speedier permits and other relaxed regulations — in a second Trump administration, the former president told the executives over the dinner of chopped steak at Mar-a-Lago.
The roughly two dozen executives invited included Mike Sabel, the CEO and founder of Venture Global, and Jack Fusco, the CEO of Cheniere Energy, whose proposed projects would directly benefit from lifting the pause on new LNG exports. Other attendees came from companies including Chevron, Continental Resources, Exxon and Occidental Petroleum, according to an attendance list obtained by The Post.
Oil well pump jacks operated by Chevron in San Ardo, Calif. (David Paul Morris/Bloomberg News)
The fossil fuel industry has aggressively lobbied against the EPA’s tailpipe rules, which could eat into demand for its petroleum products. The American Fuel & Petrochemical Manufacturers, an industry trade group, has launched a seven-figure campaign .. https://www.afpm.org/newsroom/news/afpm-launches-seven-figure-issue-campaign-spotlighting-gas-car-ban-policies-across .. against what it calls a de facto “gas car ban.” The campaign includes ads in battleground states warning that the rule will restrict consumer choice.
“Clearly, if you are producing gasoline and diesel, you want to make sure that there’s enough market there,” said Stephen Brown, an energy consultant and a former lobbyist for Tesoro, an oil refining company. “I don’t know that the oil industry would walk in united with a set of asks for the Trump administration, but I think it’s important for this issue to get raised.”
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Although the repeal of the EPA rule would benefit the fossil fuel industry, it would probably anger the auto industry, which has invested billions of dollars in the transition away from gasoline-powered cars. Many automakers are under increasing pressure to sell more EVs in Europe, which has tightened its own tailpipe emissions rules, and they are eager to avoid a patchwork of regulations around the globe.
“Automakers need some degree of regulatory certainty from government,” said John Bozzella, president and CEO of the Alliance for Automotive Innovation, which represents Ford, General Motors, Stellantis, Toyota and other car companies.
“What has emerged instead is a wholesale repeal… and then reinstatement… and then repeal again of regulations every four or eight years,” Bozzella said in an email.
Insert: So Mr. Bozzella, How many millions are you people putting into ad campaigns to get Biden reelected? Your desire for consistency from government is fair. Moves to help gain a cleaner environment will continue in Europe. obviously it follows you should be pouring dollars into ads to help Biden. Biden's cause is the only decent way forward, Europe knows it. You know it. So get the campaign going. Do it.
Biden’s EV policies have also sparked opposition in rural, Republican-led states such as North Dakota, where there are far more oil pump jacks than charging stations. A key figure leading the Trump campaign’s development of its energy policy is North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum .. https://www.washingtonpost.com/elections/candidates/doug-burgum-2024/?itid=lk_inline_manual_33 .. (R), who has been talking extensively to oil donors and CEOs.
At a fundraiser on Saturday in Palm Beach, Fla., Burgum told donors that Trump would halt Biden’s “attack” on fossil fuels, according to a recording of his remarks obtained by The Post.
“What would be the No. 1 thing that President Trump could do on Day 1? It’s stop the hostile attack against all American energy, and I mean all,” Burgum said. “Whether it’s baseload electricity, whether it’s oil, whether it’s gas, whether it’s ethanol, there is an attack on liquid fuels.”
Burgum also criticized the Biden administration’s policies on gas stoves and vehicles with internal combustion engines, claiming that they would prevent consumers from buying both technologies. While the Energy Department recently set new efficiency standards .. https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2024/01/29/gas-stoves-biden-energy-climate/?itid=lk_inline_manual_38 .. for gas stoves, they would not affect the stoves in people’s kitchens or those currently on the market.
“They’ve got some liberal idea about what products we need,” Burgum said. “You all need EV cars. You don’t need internal combustion. We’ll decide what kind of car you’re going to drive, and we’re going to regulate the other ones out of business. I mean, it’s just in every industry, not just in cars, not just in energy. They’re telling people what stoves you can buy. This is not America.”
[That's it Burgum. Leave out the reasons why. Leave out the important reason why some buying options for the oil and gas industry are being eased out. The reason of course is because Europe and other countries care about leaving a cleaner and healthier world for your children's children. And their children. Think of your selfish self, Mr. Burgum. Sadly, that is your America.]
Cheniere Energy President and CEO Jack Fusco speaks during the CERAWeek energy conference in Houston on March 18. (Mark Felix/AFP/Getty Images)
The Biden campaign initially declined to comment for this article. After this piece was published, however, Biden campaign spokesman Ammar Moussa said in a statement that “Donald Trump is selling out working families to Big Oil for campaign checks. It’s that simple.”
“It doesn’t matter to Trump that oil and gas companies charge working families and middle-class Americans whatever they want while raking in record profits — if Donald can cash a check, he’ll do what they say,” Moussa added.
Burgum — a possible contender to lead the Energy Department in a second Trump term — has pushed harder to address climate change than many other Republicans. He set a goal in 2021 for North Dakota — the third-largest oil-producing state .. https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/oil-and-petroleum-products/where-our-oil-comes-from.php — to become carbon-neutral by 2030. He has stressed, however, that the goal won’t be achieved via government mandates or the elimination of fossil fuels, and he has cultivated deep support among oil donors.
Despite Trump’s huge fundraising ask, oil donors and their allies have yet to donate hundreds of millions to his campaign. They have contributed more than $6.4 million to Trump’s joint fundraising committee in the first three months of this year, according to an analysis by the advocacy group Climate Power. Oil billionaire Harold Hamm and others are scheduling a fundraiser for Trump later this year, advisers said, where they expect large checks to flow to his bid to return to office.
One person involved in the industry said many oil executives wanted Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis or another Republican to challenge Biden. But now that Trump is the nominee, this person said, they are going to embrace his policies and give.
Dan Eberhart, chief executive of the oil-field services company Canary and a Trump donor, said the Republican onslaught of donations was not surprising.
“Biden constantly throws a wet blanket to the oil and gas industry,” Eberhart said. “Trump’s ‘drill baby drill’ philosophy aligns much better with the oil patch than Biden’s green-energy approach. It’s a no-brainer.”
Alex Witt, a senior adviser for oil and gas with Climate Power, said Trump’s promise is he will do whatever the oil industry wants if they support him. With Trump, Witt said, “everything has a price.”
“They got a great return on their investment during Trump’s first term, and Trump is making it crystal clear that they’re in for an even bigger payout if he’s reelected,” she said.
Firefox has a feature called reader view, that blocks a lot of the paywalls. It's a little page looking thing to the far right of the address field. It works on Wp as well as many others. I'm sure these sources aren't crazy about that. The viewer works like 80-90% of the time. Only fails when the website itself blocks it.
The owner of a website usually has options to stop even data crawlers from going beyond the landing page. Lots of cool things websites do in nanoseconds while it's loading.