Donald Trump continued to solicit fossil fuel executives to donate to his presidential campaign on Wednesday, despite scrutiny of his ties to the industry.
The former president attended a fundraising luncheon hosted by three executives from major oil companies at the Post Oak Hotel in Houston.
The invitation-only meeting comes a day after the defense rested its case in Trump's hush-money criminal trial and a week after Houston was hit by deadly storms. The climate crisis, caused primarily by the burning of fossil fuels, is creating more frequent and severe rainfall and flooding conditions, including in Texas.
“Houstonians looked on in disbelief as President Trump flew in to beg big oil for money just days after Houston's climate disaster,” said Alex Glass, communications director for the climate advocacy group Climate Power and a former Houston resident.
It also follows a fundraising dinner last month at Trump's Mar-a-Lago club, where the former president reportedly addressed more than 20 oil industry executives from the industry. He raised $1 billion in campaign funds and promised that if elected, he would remove barriers to drilling, reverse a moratorium on natural gas exports and reverse new regulations aimed at reducing air pollution from cars.
“Donald Trump is once again trying to tell us who he is,” said Pete Maysmith, executive vice president of the League of Conservation Voters, an environmental nonprofit. “He's already asked oil executives for $1 billion for his campaign, [and] I can only assume that this week's meeting is to negotiate what they will get in return.”
Executives from two of the companies reportedly attending the Mar-a-Lago meeting were also among the organizers of Trump's fundraiser on Wednesday.
Harold Hamm, executive chairman and founder of Continental Resources and one of the organizers of Wednesday's luncheon, is a longtime Trump supporter and is said to have attended the dinner in April.
Mr. Hamm, a multibillion-dollar billionaire, was a key figure in the boom in oil extraction from the Bakken shale formation in the U.S. Midwest and Canada.
During Trump's first presidential campaign, Hamm was also reportedly one of the top seven donors who received a special seat at Trump's inauguration. The oil tycoon was briefly considered for the role of energy secretary during the former president's first term, but he reportedly turned down the role. He turned away from Trump after his 2020 loss, choosing to donate to his opponent, but in August he donated to Trump's primary campaign.
One of Hum's Wednesday co-hosts was Vicki Holub, chief executive officer of Occidental Petroleum Corp., who also represented Mar-a-Lago's fundraiser. Holub invests in carbon capture technology to continue extracting oil and gas despite warning that fossil fuels must be phased out to avoid the worst effects of climate change It has been criticized by climate change activists.
Democratic lawmakers launched an investigation into Occidental Petroleum on Wednesday after the Federal Trade Commission charged last month that the company and six other companies illegally conspired with the oil-producing cartel OPEC+ to keep fuel prices high.
The third co-sponsor of Wednesday's meeting, Kelsey Warren, is the executive chairman of Energy Transfer Partners, which has close financial ties to President Trump.
Throughout the 2024 campaign, Warren donated more than $800,000 to the Trump campaign. During the 2020 campaign, he held at least one fundraiser for the former president and donated $10 million to pro-Trump super pacs.
According to an investigation by the Guardian, Trump invested in the company and received more than $100,000 in campaign contributions from Warren during his first presidential campaign in 2016.
Warren appears to have benefited from Trump's first term: Within days of taking office in 2017, Trump approved Warren's company's highly controversial Dakota Access Pipeline, angering climate advocates, conservationists and nearby Native American tribal organizations.
Last year, the Texas Tribune reported that Energy Transfer Partners made as much as $2.4 billion in profits as gas demand soared during Texas' deadly winter freeze and the subsequent collapse of the state's energy grid. revealed.
The fossil fuel industry poured $7.3 million into Trump's 2024 campaign and related groups, making it his fifth-largest industrial donor this election cycle.
An analysis last week found that a $1 billion “deal” that President Trump allegedly offered oil company executives last month could save the industry $110 billion in tax cuts if he returns to the White House. It turned out that.
Last week, Rep. Raskin launched a House oversight investigation into nine oil companies after it was reported that Trump offered to roll back Biden's environmental regulations on their behalf and asked for $1 billion in campaign contributions.
Democratic Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse has also expressed interest in formally investigating the Mar-a-Lago meeting. He told the Guardian that Citizens for Responsibility, Washington's powerful watchdog, was also investigating.
