Donald Trump speaks outside his hush money criminal trial in Manhattan. Mark Peterson/Pool Photo/AP
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Donald Trump President Trump continued to solicit fossil fuel industry executives to donate money to his presidential campaign on Wednesday, despite scrutiny of his ties to the industry.
The former president was attending a fundraising luncheon hosted by three executives from major oil companies at the Post Oak Hotel in Houston.
The invitation-only event took place one day after the defense finished presentations in President Trump's hush-money criminal trial and one week after Houston was hit by a deadly storm. The climate crisis, caused in large part by the burning of fossil fuels, is creating conditions for more frequent and severe rainfall and flooding in Texas and elsewhere.
“Donald Trump is once again showing who he is. He's already asking oil executives for $1 billion for his campaign.”
“Houstonians looked on in disbelief as President Trump flew in to plead for financial help from Big Oil 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 promised more than 20 oil industry executives that he would raise $1 billion in campaign contributions from the industry and, if elected, remove barriers to drilling, reverse the moratorium on natural gas exports and roll back new regulations aimed at reducing air pollution from vehicles.
“Donald Trump is once again showing us who he is,” said Pete Maysmith, executive vice president of the League of Environmental Voters, an environmental group. “He's already asked oil executives for $1 billion in campaign contributions, and this week's meetings seem like a way to negotiate what he's getting in return.”
Executives from two of the companies reportedly attending the Mar-a-Lago meeting were among the organizers of a fundraiser for President Trump on Wednesday.
Harold Hamm, chairman and founder of Continental Resources and one of the hosts of Wednesday's luncheon, is a longtime Trump supporter and reportedly attended the April dinner.
Hamm, a multi-billionaire, was a key player in the rush to extract oil from the Bakken shale deposits in the U.S. Midwest and Canada.
During Trump's first presidential campaign, Hamm was also reportedly one of the top seven donors given special seating at Trump's inauguration. The oil tycoon was reportedly briefly considered for Secretary of Energy during the former president's first term but declined. After his loss in the 2020 election, Hamm turned his back on Trump, choosing to donate to his opponents, but then donated to Trump's primary campaign in August.
One of Hamm's co-hosts on Wednesday was Vicki Holub, the CEO of Occidental Petroleum, who also appeared at the Mar-a-Lago fundraiser. Holub has been criticized by environmental activists for investing in carbon-capture technology to continue extracting oil and gas despite warnings that fossil fuels must be phased out to avoid the worst effects of climate change.
Democratic lawmakers launched investigations Wednesday into Occidental Petroleum and other companies after the Federal Trade Commission charged last month that the head of Pioneer Natural Resources illegally conspired with the oil-producing cartel OPEC+ to inflate fuel prices.
The third co-host of Wednesday's meeting, Kelcy Warren, is chairman of Energy Transfer Partners, a company with close financial ties to President Trump.
Warren has donated more than $800,000 to the Trump campaign during her 2024 campaign, and she held at least one fundraiser for the former president in 2020 and donated $10 million to a pro-Trump super PAC during the 2020 election cycle.
During his first presidential campaign in 2016, Trump invested in the company and received more than $100,000 in campaign contributions from Warren. Guardian found.
The industry has donated at least $7.3 million so far to Trump's 2024 campaign and related groups.
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, Texas Tribune The investigation found that Energy Transfer Partners made $2.4 billion in profits after a deadly winter freeze in Texas and the subsequent collapse of the state's power grid caused a surge in gas demand.
The fossil fuel industry has donated $7.3 million to Trump's 2024 campaign and related groups, making it the industry's fifth-largest donor this election cycle.
A $1 billion “deal” that President Trump reportedly proposed to oil company executives last month could save the oil industry $110 billion in tax cuts if he returns to the White House, an analysis found last week.
Last week, Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) 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 solicited $1 billion in donations from them to his presidential campaign.
Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) has also expressed interest in formally investigating the Mar-a-Lago meeting, and Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics, a powerful Washington watchdog group, has also Guardian under investigation.
