What better sign could there be that we are drowning in political outrage, that we are accustomed to it, than this:
a national newspaper collected This month, Donald Trump gathered about two dozen oil industry executives for a ground beef dinner at his Mar-a-Lago playground in April and suggested “a deal”: They should raise $1 billion for his campaign. presidential because, once re-elected, They would cut his federal taxes and regulations and, as he had said many times before, Let them “drill, baby, drill.”
opinion columnist
Jackie Calmes
Jackie Calmes brings a critical look to the national political scene. He has decades of experience covering the White House and Congress.
That story came and went, with few comments or Follow up in the media.
After all, it was the first criminal trial against a current or former president that covered in manhattan. Or new polls on the 2024 presidential race. Or Judge Clarence Thomas' Complaints about criticism of their ethical transgressions. Or the congressional Republicans who showed up at Trump's trial to smear the fair process as “a travesty of justice” and “a farce” in Trump's name, their red ties matched his own in an apt metaphor for their ties to him.
But back to the oily history of oil money.
That was $1 billion, with a B, which Trump was looking for, according to the Washington Post. And he was requesting that sum from energy bosses in exchange for what he considers due compensation for his plans, if elected, to kill President Biden's agenda on climate change. Biden's historic achievement is not yet proportional to the existential threat facing the nation and the world, but once again, Trump has called out global warming “a deception” invented by the Chinese.
However, this roundtable of plutocrats and the once and perhaps future president was essentially a one-day story, as journalists say.
Future generations will be surprised at our general complacency about global warming, as they grapple with the costly consequences and natural disasters we have only begun to experience. By then, the rising waters already eroding Florida's coastline may have flooded Mar-a-Lago. And Trump, who prattles on about draining the swamp but actually owns it, will go down in history.
It was reportedly near the end of the dinner when Trump told his guests, from companies including Exxon, Chevron, Occidental Petroleum, Continental Resources, EQT Corp., Chesapeake Energy, Cheniere Energy and Venture Global, as well as his lobbying, American Petroleum. Institute: which should help him catch up with Biden in the search for campaign money. To underline this not-so-subtle shakedown, the head of Trump's main super PAC was among the attendees.
The disgraced former president told diners that his second-term policies, “on Day 1,” would generate a good return on his investment — an immediate end to the Biden administration. freeze permissions of new terminals to export liquefied natural gas. (“You'll get it on the first day.”) No more restrictions on drilling in the Alaskan Arctic. New leases to drill in the Gulf of Mexico. Further corporate tax cuts. And, by inference, revoke California authority to enforce clean air regulations that are stricter than those of the federal government.
Trump even raised things that energy magnates don't care much about. He ranted, as he routinely does at his MAGA awareness rallies, about eliminating federal incentives. for wind energy and electric vehicles.
The industry is reportedly about to make a down payment on Trump's proposed deal. Billionaires Kelcy Warren, head of Energy Transfer Partners, and Harold Hamm, the Continental chairman who helped organize the Mar-a-Lago conference, will host this week. a fundraising event for Trump in Texas.
Yes, both political parties receive huge profits from special interests, much of it dark money. And Biden is ahead of Trump in the cash race, if not in the most contested state polls. However, Trump is uniquely and shamelessly transactional, greedy and explicit about quid pro quos. At his dinner, even some of his guests were stunned, according to the Post.
It's not that the oil barons are suffering under the Biden administration. They should know that Trump lies when he talks about “Joe Biden's war on American energy”. United States oil production is setting records and industry profits are gushing. Despite Biden's moratorium on export terminal permits, the nation leads the world in natural gas exports and has enough construction permits in place to double capacity. To the chagrin of environmentalists, Biden has authorized oil projects in Alaska, West Virginia and Texas, among others.
To be fair to the industry, most of its bosses are not pushing to repeal Biden's landmark clean energy law, as Trump and many Republicans in Congress are calling for. On the one hand, the law includes tax credits that benefit their companies. They also recognizeIf Trump doesn't, climate change is real and the fossil fuel industry must adapt, if only because market forces and government policies, not just in the United States but globally, demand it.
Even without Trump's obscene request, the country's oil, gas and coal magnates would likely open their wallets to him. They are almost uniformly Republican, as industry leaders have been for many decades, allergic to the taxes and regulations that Democrats generally favor. Still, I'd like to think that at least some of those moguls at Trump's table last month felt the need to retreat to their gold-adorned rooms at Mar-a-Lago for a long, hot shower.
Remember, the scandal a century ago that became synonymous with corruption in Washington and remains a staple of American history textbooks (Teapot Dome) was about oil bribery. But, as has often been said about campaign finance, the problem today is not what is illegal; It is what is legal.
Still, Trump's unethical actions should raise eyebrows. For more than a day.
