According to two people who were present, former President Donald Trump told a group of oil executives and lobbyists gathered at a dinner at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida last month that they should donate $1 billion to his presidential campaign. because, if elected, he would roll back the environmental regulations that, according to him, hindered his industry.
About 20 people attended the April 11 event, billed as an “energy roundtable,” at Trump’s private club, according to those people, who asked not to be identified to discuss the private event. Attendees included executives from Exxon Mobil Corp, EQT Corp and the American Petroleum Institute, a pro-oil industry lobbying group.
The event was organized by billionaire Harold Hamm, who for years has contributed to the formulation of Republican energy policies. The Washington Post was the first to report on it.
For months, Trump has publicly attacked the energy and environmental agenda of President Joe Biden, who has rushed to restore and strengthen dozens of climate and conservation regulations that Trump had weakened or eliminated during his term. In particular, Trump has promised to eliminate Biden’s new climate rules aimed at accelerating the nation’s transition to electric vehicles, and to advance an agenda aimed at opening more of the country to oil and gas exploration inspired by the campaign slogan “ Drill, baby, drill,” first used by former Maryland Lieutenant Governor Michael Steele at the 2008 Republican National Convention.
Biden considers climate change an existential threat and has moved to reduce pollution that dangerously warms the planet and causes storms, heat waves and droughts.
Over a dinner of chopped steak, Trump repeated his public promises to eliminate Biden’s controls to curb pollution and told attendees they should donate heavily to help him defeat Biden because his policies would help their industries.
“That was his speech to persuade everyone,” said Michael McKenna, who worked in the White House during the Trump administration but did not attend the event in Florida.
McKenna said the former president’s call to the fossil fuel industry might be summed up as: “Look, you want me to win. They may not even like him, but their other option is four more years of these guys,” referring to the Biden administration. And he added: “The shared sentiment of businesspeople is: ‘We don’t want four more years of Team Biden.’”
Karoline Leavitt, a spokeswoman for Trump’s campaign, did not go into detail regarding what Trump allegedly said during the dinner. In a statement, he attacked Biden, arguing that he is controlled by “environmental extremists who are trying to implement the most radical energy agenda in history and force Americans to buy electric vehicles they cannot afford” and that Trump counts “ with the support of people who share his vision of vigorous dominance of the United States to protect our national security and lower the cost of living for all Americans.”
On Thursday, Biden’s presidential campaign accused Trump of “selling out working families in exchange for campaign donations from oil barons.”
Biden has frustrated the fossil fuel industry with the most ambitious climate agenda in the country’s history. He signed into law a sweeping law that allocates $370 billion to incentives for clean energy and electric vehicles, as well as a series of tough rules aimed at significantly reducing emissions from burning oil, gas and coal.
This year, the Biden administration suspended the permitting process for new liquefied natural gas export facilities to study their impact on climate change, the economy and national security.
But the fossil fuel industry has also enjoyed unprecedented benefits under the Biden administration. Last year, the United States produced unprecedented amounts of oil. And even with the pause in granting new permits for gas export terminals, the United States is the world’s leading exporter of natural gas and remains on track to nearly double its export capacity by 2027 thanks to projects already authorized and under construction .
Biden also approved several oil and gas projects from the fossil fuel industry.
The president authorized a massive $8 billion oil development in Alaska known as the Willow project. He also granted a crucial permit for the Mountain Valley Pipeline, a project championed by West Virginia Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin, despite opposition from climate experts and environmental groups. Last month, undeterred by opposition from climate activists, the Biden administration also gave approval to an oil export project in Texas known as the Sea Port Oil Terminal.
Some oil and gas executives have said they would prefer to see some of Biden’s regulations remain in place, such as one requiring companies to detect and stop methane leaks from oil and gas wells. They said they wanted consistency rather than an endless pattern of regulatory whiplash in which one government enacts rules, the next repeals them, and the next restores them once more.
However, many have attacked Biden’s policies and the industry has donated heavily to Trump’s presidential campaign.
Although attendees were told that Trump’s event was a roundtable on energy, printouts of PowerPoint slides regarding migrants at the southern border awaited in the chairs of Mar-a-Lago executives and lobbyists.
Part of the meeting revolved around immigration, with Trump stating that he wanted separate divisions of Ultimate Fighting Championship fighters: one designated for immigrants who crossed the border illegally and the other for “Americans.”
The room was filled mostly with oil and gas executives, including Mike Sabel, CEO and founder of Venture Global LNG; Toby Rice, president and CEO of EQT Corp; Jack Fusco, CEO of Cheniere Energy; and Nick Dell’Osso, president of Chesapeake Energy.
Other attendees included North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum, a former Republican presidential candidate who has acted as Trump’s liaison on energy issues, and Hamm, CEO of Continental Resources, one of the largest oil and gas drilling companies in Oklahoma and North Dakota.
#reason #Trump #attacked #climate #regulations #contribution #asked #oil #companies
