The United States currently produces more oil than any country at any time in history. Under President Joe Biden.
The two largest American oil companies — ExxonMobil and Chevron — recently reported their largest annual profits in more than a decade.
But if that’s not enough for the oil and gas industry, and it may not be, then Republican Presidential candidate Donald Trump has a deal on the table. As The Washington Post reports in an exclusive story:
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. [Pols emphasis] At the dinner, he vowed to immediately reverse dozens of President Biden’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.
What a deal! And what would the O&G industry get in return for donating $1 billion to Trump’s campaign coffers? Pretty much whatever they want.
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.
Trump vowed at the dinner to immediately end the Biden administration’s freeze on permits for new liquefied natural gas (LNG) exports — a top priority for the executives, according to three people present. “You’ll get it on the first day,” Trump said, according to the recollection of an attendee…
…Trump told the executives that he would start auctioning off more leases for oil drilling in the Gulf of Mexico, a priority that several of the executives raised. He railed against wind power, as The Post previously reported. And he said he would reverse the restrictions on drilling in the Alaskan Arctic.
“You’ve been waiting on a permit for five years; you’ll get it on Day 1,” Trump told the executives, according to the recollection of the attendee. [Pols emphasis]
At the dinner, Trump also promised that he would scrap Biden’s “mandate” on electric vehicles — mischaracterizing ambitious rules that the Environmental Protection Agency recently finalized, according to people who attended.
According to the Post, roughly two dozen O&G executives were invited to the Mar-a-Lago meeting, including Mike Sabel, the CEO and founder of Venture Global; Jack Fusco, the CEO of Cheniere Energy; and representatives from Chevron, Continental Resources, Exxon and Occidental Petroleum.
If (for some reason) you needed additional motivation to oppose another Trump administration, this should help move things along.
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I have to say, this is perhaps the least surprising headline I have seen in recent memory. His hopes to bribe the OilyBoyz is the reason Doug Burgum is ascendant in the VP sweepstakes. He IS an OilyBoy.