Senate Democrats are launching an investigation into that April meeting at Mar-a-Lago where Donald Trump promised a bunch of oil company executives that he planned to completely erase all of Joe Biden’s climate policies and regulations if elected, so could they please pony up a billion dollars for his campaign?
That sure smelled like both a leaky oil tanker run aground and a quid pro quo to Democratic senators, so the Senate Financial and Budget Committees announced Thursday that they will open a joint investigation to determine if the meeting violated any laws.
In what may be a timing coincidence but we bet it wasn’t, two senators announced the investigation right when Sen. Dick Durbin was getting an entire rash of shit from half of the American public for weakly explaining there’s no need to investigate Samuel Alito for flying not one but two insurrection flags while ruling on cases involving Donald Trump’s insurrection because “America knows what he did.” That is some weak sad poop.
COINCIDENCE!
The investigation is being headed by Finance Committee Chair Ron Wyden (D-Oregon) and Budget Committee Chair Sheldon Whitehouse (R-Rhode Island), who both want answers from nine oil and gas companies as well as the fossil fuel companies’ trade associations.
In a statement, the Dems said Trump’s request for a billion damn dollars in exchange for actions that would help out polluting industries was “particularly concerning” because of reporting from Politico that oil and gas industry lawyers are helpfully writing up “ready to sign” executive orders gutting environmental regulations, so if Trump is elected, he can sign them right away after he’s sworn in.
We have to say that’s pretty smart of the fossilheads, given Trump’s habit of forgetting to follow through on promises and his administration’s history of drafting such shitty executive orders that they get thrown out in court for not following basic legal rules. No sense leaving the important business of despoiling the planet and ramping up greenhouse emissions to a bunch of amateurs.
In the statement, Wyden and Whitehouse wrote,
As Mr. Trump funnels campaign money into his businesses and uses it as a slush fund to pay his legal fees, Big Oil has been lobbying aggressively to protect and expand its profits at the expense of the American taxpayer.
And now, emboldened by impunity, Mr. Trump and Big Oil are flaunting their indifference to U.S. citizens’ economic well-being for all to see, conferring on how to trade campaign cash for policy changes.
The senators are asking the fossil fuel companies and their trade associations to provide any materials Trump or his campaign may have distributed at the meeting, as well as descriptions of any specific promises he may have made. On top of that, they want copies of any executive orders or other policy documents that may have been drafted for Trump. And of course records of all donations from the companies and their people.
As the Washington Post reported (gift link), at that Mar-a-Lago meeting, one of the assembled rich fuckwads complained that even though they had spent $400 billion on lobbying during Biden’s presidency, Joe just keeps regulating fossil fuels as if there’s some sort of climate crisis. Factcheck true, at least as far as Biden’s regulatory agenda. It’s pretty much the goddamned point.
Reuters, doing what reporters have to do for “balance,” sought comment from some of the fossil greedheads being investigated, eliciting a gusher of filthy toxic sludge in the form of a statement from the American Petroleum Institute, the climate change-denying trade association and disinformation funnel for the oil industry. API spokesperson Andrea Woods dismissed the investigation as “an election year stunt,” explaining “API meets with candidates and policymakers to discuss the need for sound energy policies, and this meeting was no different.”
Gosh kids, it’s only reasonable that the industry devoted to eternally spewing greenhouse gases into the atmosphere would seek an open channel of communication with a guy who’s pledged to dismantle every regulation possible. It’s only fair that they have a place at the table where they and Republicans make plans to murder the planet’s ecosystems and divvy up the corpse.
Also on Thursday, the Washington Post reported (another gift link) that Trump just can’t quit it with the big promises to Big Carbon Pollution. On Wednesday, the day before the Senate committees announced their investigation, Trump held another meeting with oil executives, this time in Houston, where he underlined the quo he would grant them for a billion quid, only this is AMERICA where we say bucks instead. According to “detailed notes” from an anonymous insider who attended the meeting,
Trump said that if he returned to office in January, he would issue “immediate approvals for energy infrastructure. That’s pipelines, power plants,” […]
“I approved the Keystone pipeline, and I approved the Dakota Access pipeline,” Trump said at the fundraiser at Houston’s Post Oak Hotel, according to the notes.
One of the hosts of the $250,000 per person meeting was Kelcy Warren, “the billionaire chairman and CEO of Energy Transfer Partners,” the company that perpetrated the Dakota Access pipeline. A former supporter of Ron DeSantis, Warren is now on the Trump Train (at least as long as it isn’t electric), and has so far donated $800,000 to the Trump campaign.
This time around, Trump didn’t specify a dollar amount he wanted from the oil-stained planet killers, but he did urge them to “be generous.” Trump again promised to end Biden’s pause on approval of new liquefied natural gas export terminals, and to ditch the EPA’s new vehicle emissions rules, which will ramp up increasingly strict limits on vehicles’ CO2 emissions between 2027 and 2035. And as usual, Trump bashed electric vehicles, lying that the EPA rules are an “EV mandate” (they’re agnostic on how manufacturers meet the CO2 limits, and would still allow sales of internal combustion vehicles).
And what the hell, Trump even tried out some new material, this time griping about heavy-duty electric commercial trucks, so we suppose some disinformation about those has made its way to him. Apparently he just doesn’t like that they’re large.
The batteries in electric trucks, Trump complained, are too big and too heavy. “It’s a massive battery. The battery’s bigger than a freaking army tank,” he said, according to the attendee’s notes.
He also mocked energy-efficient and water-saving appliances, calling them a “scam” and “the energy hoax.”
Fact check: Batteries for most long-haul electric trucks weigh between 4.5 and 7.5 American tons, with the heavier ones delivering up to 600+ miles of range. The weight of America’s main battle tank, the M1A1 Abrams, is 73 tons, so Trump’s already lying. Next he’ll probably say electric trucks cause wind cancer.
Trump also rambled on more about the 2020 election, his indictments, and even his golf game, but lordy no one wants to read about that.
Good luck, Senators!
PREVIOUSLY!
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[Senate Finance Committee / Reuters / Politico / WaPo (gift link) / Charged EVs]
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