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offshore drilling
Trump Would Sell Anything for Personal Gain—Even Planet Earth
Trump told oil and gas executives to raise $1 billion to return him to the White House and he’d reverse dozens of Biden’s environmental rules and policies and stop new ones from being enacted.
May 10, 2024
Trump is selling everything to raise money for himself and his campaign.
The Trump Bible (which also includes a copy of the U.S. Constitution, Pledge of Allegiance, Declaration of Independence, and Bill of Rights).
Trump shoes (ranging from the nearly all-gold “Never Surrender” high tops priced at $399 to the lower-cut “Red Wave” and “POTUS 45”).
Shares in Truth Social, Trump’s social media platform.
You might think that the world can’t be bought and sold, but apparently there are no bounds to the promises Trump will make to get back into the White House.
Digital trading cards (of which the most recent set, “The Mugshot edition,” offers collectors a chance to own a swatch of the suit the former president wore for his Fulton County, Georgia, mugshot, priced at $99 a piece or $4,653 for the full set, which includes an invitation to a dinner at Mar-a-Lago).
Trump cologne and perfume stamped with the former president’s name (the “Victory47” bottles are each listed for $99 respectively. The cologne bottle’s image, subject to change, has a Trump head topper).
But now, Trump is selling something far, far bigger. In fact, you can’t get any bigger.
He’s selling the entire world.
You might think that the world can’t be bought and sold, but apparently there are no bounds to the promises Trump will make to get back into the White House.
Everything’s for sale.
When Trump sat down with some of America’s top oil executives last month at Mar-a-Lago, according to the The Washington Post, they complained of burdensome environmental regulations, despite spending $400 million to lobby the Biden administration in the last year.
Trump’s response? He would offer them a better deal.
He told them to raise $1 billion to return him to the White House and he’d reverse dozens of 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).
The $1 billion “deal” would more than pay for itself, Trump told the oil executives, because of the taxes and regulations they would avoid thanks to him.
Biden has called global warming an “existential threat,” and over the last three years, his administration has finalized 100 new environmental regulations aimed at cutting air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions, restricting toxic chemicals, and conserving public lands and waters.
Trump has called climate change a “hoax.” His administration weakened or wiped out more than 125 environmental rules over four years.
Now, he’s making an even bigger offer. At that Mar-a-Lago dinner, the former president told Big Oil executives that they’ll have an even greater windfall in a second Trump administration — including new offshore drilling, speedier permits, and other relaxed regulations — if they sink a billion into his campaign.
Trump promised to immediately end the Biden administration’s freeze on permits for new liquefied natural gas exports — a top priority for the executives. “You’ll get it on the first day,” Trump said.
Trump told the executives that he would start auctioning off more leases for oil drilling in the Gulf of Mexico, another priority for several of the executives. He railed against wind power. And he said he would reverse the restrictions on drilling in the Alaskan Arctic.
Trump also promised that he would scrap Biden’s rules for electric vehicles. The rules require automakers to reduce emissions from car tailpipes butdon’t mandate a particular technology such as EVs. Trump called the rules “ridiculous” in the meeting with donors.
Will Big Oil put up $1 billion for all of this? Maybe.
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Big Oil, Green Groups Sue Over Biden's Offshore Drilling Plan for the Gulf
"Our lawsuit is another stand for the Gulf ecosystem, its nearby communities, and all wildlife that continue to suffer at the hands of Big Oil," said Friends of the Earth's legal director.
Feb 13, 2024
Faced with a rapidly warming world that is hurtling toward terrifying tipping points, climate groups on Monday filed a lawsuit over the Biden administration's five-year plan for offshore drilling in the Gulf of Mexico—and so did the fossil fuel industry.
Both suits target the 2024-29 National Outer Continental Shelf Oil and Gas Leasing Program. When the plan was finalized in December, the U.S. Department of the Interior highlighted that it features the fewest lease sales in history—just three—and the Inflation Reduction Act ties offshore wind development to continued oil and gas leasing.
Despite scientists' warnings about continued fossil fuel extraction and use, the American Petroleum Institute, an industry trade group, is fighting for more lease sales. API senior vice president and general counsel Ryan Meyers on Monday claimed that the Biden administration "has used every tool at its disposal to restrict access to vast energy resources in federal waters."
Meanwhile, green groups argue that the administration hasn't gone far enough in terms of tackling the fossil fuel-driven climate emergency and delivering on the campaign promises of Democratic President Joe Biden, who is seeking reelection in November.
"It is time for us to transition away from these industries, not enable further drilling in the years to come."
“Fossil fuel development is untenable if we want a livable future," declared Brettny Hardy, an attorney with Earthjustice, which is representing the climate groups. "The oil and gas industry is already sitting on 9 million acres of undeveloped leases. They certainly are not entitled to more."
"Although we acknowledge the government's focus on climate impacts with the release of this five-year offshore leasing plan, we are taking legal action today because we are concerned about how it will jeopardize the health of overburdened communities," Hardy explained.
Kristen Schlemmer of Bayou City Waterkeeper in Houston stressed that in her city and "along the Texas Gulf Coast, the stakes are high."
"More fossil fuels means more carbon emissions, which means more intense hurricanes hitting the inadequately guarded petrochemical infrastructure that is already in place," she said. "It is time for us to transition away from these industries, not enable further drilling in the years to come."
In addition to emphasizing the dangers of what Oceana campaign director Joseph Gordon called a "deadly cycle of drilling and spilling," the climate and Gulf groups represented by Earthjustice also slammed the API suit, which Brad Sewell of the Natural Resources Defense Council described as "unfounded and unwarranted."
Pete Stauffer, ocean protection manager at the Surfrider Foundation, argued that the industry suit "belies the fact that new offshore drilling is broadly unpopular and is not needed to meet our nation's energy needs," noting that the administration's plan "was informed by nearly a million public comments" against new extraction in U.S. waters.
Friends of the Earth legal director Hallie Templeton said that "we are not surprised by this industry challenge, given its track record of suing every time the Biden administration makes any attempt to break free from fossil fuels."
"Our lawsuit is another stand for the Gulf ecosystem, its nearby communities, and all wildlife that continue to suffer at the hands of Big Oil," Templeton added.
The other groups joining the green groups' challenge to the five-year plan are Healthy Gulf, Sierra Club, and Turtle Island Restoration Network. According toReuters, both lawsuits were filed in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia.
The competing legal battles were launched as 21 protesters with the youth-led Sunrise Movement were arrested on Monday for blockading Biden's reelection campaign headquarters in Delaware and demanding that he declare a climate emergency.
The president has faced criticism for not only declining to declare a climate emergency and continuing fossil fuel lease sales but also skipping the United Nations summit late last year and supporting the Willow oil project and Mountain Valley Pipeline.
Biden has also come under fire for backing the expansion of the liquefied natural gas industry, though his administration won praise from green groups last month for halting approvals for LNG exports to non-Fair Trade Agreement countries—a move that former President Donald Trump, the Republican front-runner, has vowed to reverse if he is elected later this year.
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Alongside Soaring Global Temperatures, Growing Oil and Gas Drilling and Profits
We need to speak louder than the fossil fuel industry and demand urgent action from governments.
Jan 21, 2024
We’ve just come out of the hottest year on record — by a lot! Scientists predict that this year we’ll exceed the 1.5 C limit for warming set by countries in the 2015 Paris climate agreement. Meanwhile, Canada and the U.S. are setting records for oil and gas production, and industry would like to keep it that way.
The main cause of the record warming — and the floods, droughts, wildfires, mass human migrations, species extinctions and economic hardships that come with it — is increasing levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide from burning gas, oil and coal. We’ve known this for at least half a century!
Although limited progress was made at the COP28 climate summit in Dubai late last year — after 28 years! — the overwhelming presence and influence of the fossil fuel industry and the fact that the conference was headed by United Arab Emirates’ top oil executive and this year’s summit in Azerbaijan will also be headed by an oilman illustrate that the fossil fuel industry is still running the show.
There are signs of hope — decreasing emissions in the U.S., falling prices and growing uptake for renewable energy and more. But we’ve taken so long to act on the crisis that far more ambition is needed.
At COP28, countries finally agreed that coal, oil and gas are fuelling the climate crisis and that we need to “transition” to cleaner energy “in a just, orderly and equitable manner.” The world’s governments also agreed to establish a “loss and damage” fund to help vulnerable nations — those least responsible for the crisis — cope with the increasing impacts of climate disruption. Island nations have been calling for this for years, and the fund is still inadequate.
Canada announced it would cap oil and gas industry emissions and impose regulations to reduce methane emissions. Although the emissions cap is a good start, it only applies to those from fossil fuel extraction and production, not the far greater emissions from using the products as intended. Even so, it’s getting pushback from provincial governments that prioritize industry’s interests.
There are signs of hope — decreasing emissions in the U.S., falling prices and growing uptake for renewable energy and more. But we’ve taken so long to act on the crisis that far more ambition is needed. That would be a challenge regardless, but with the continued efforts of industry and its government and media lackeys to stall progress, it’s even more difficult.
In fact, inflation is driven more by volatile fossil fuel prices and industry profiteering than anything.
Some politicians are doing everything they can to attack sensible climate and other environmental policies. Although carbon levies (misleadingly called “taxes”) were initially a conservative idea, they’ve come under attack by politicians who disingenuously blame them for inflation. In fact, inflation is driven more by volatile fossil fuel prices and industry profiteering than anything.
The industry itself is particularly brazen. As the Guardian reports, “The American oil lobby has launched an eight-figure media campaign this week promoting the idea that fossil fuels are ‘vital’ to global energy security, alarming climate experts.”
Ads on buses and online tout deadly methane gas (misleadingly called “natural” gas) as a climate solution. As coal and oil — especially dirty, expensive oil from oilsands bitumen — become increasingly difficult to justify, the industry, supported by governments, has latched onto gas to keep its profits rolling in.
They argue that fossil gas, including LNG, which is mostly methane, will be used to displace even dirtier coal, thus lowering emissions. The truth is that methane is far more potent than CO2 over the short term, can harm human health when used in homes and businesses and costs more than producing energy from wind and solar.
We need to speak louder than the fossil fuel industry and demand urgent action from governments.
One campaign even urges people in Canada to speak out against climate and public health regulations that would harm industry’s interests. A Desmog investigation found that “Voice for Energy” ads were “paid for by CGA Enterprises, a venture of the Canadian Gas Association.”
On top of that, almost every government in oil-producing jurisdictions, including Alberta, wants to be the last producer. As Stockholm Environment Institute senior scientist Michael Lazarus says in the Washington Post, “Every country has their own reason why they should be the last.” As a result, “countries expect to produce 2½ times more fossil fuels in 2050 than would align with a target of 2 degrees Celsius.”
We need to speak louder than the fossil fuel industry and demand urgent action from governments. The climate crisis is becoming increasingly costly and painful and will only get worse until we leave fossil fuels in the ground.
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