The GOP Convention, Brought to You by Big Oil

MILWAUKEE, WISCONSIN – Last night, the Republican Party kicked off its nominating convention in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, a city that Donald Trump recently called “horrible.” But what’s horrible for hardworking Americans and the future of our health, the cost of our energy, and the sustainability of our planet, is that oil and gas interests have underwritten the Republican Party and Donald Trump’s campaign and, if Trump wins, will be in charge of a federal agenda that America’s voters oppose.

• The Chair of the Republican National Committee, Michael Whatley, is a former big oil lobbyist for the likes of Exxon, BP, and the American Petroleum Institute.
• Trump has been exposed for making backroom deals with Big Oil. In return for campaign donations and contributions from Big Oil to his legal defense, Trump has promised to slash their taxes even further, eliminate pollution controls, and end investigations into Big Oil’s price-fixing schemes. 
• Project 2025, the MAGA Republican agenda written by former and future Trump administration officials, lays out a troubling vision for a takeover of the federal government that includes the end of all efforts to fight climate change.

“The priorities of Big Oil will be front and center at the GOP Convention this week, because they have bought and paid for not only the convention, but the Republican nominee, Donald Trump,” said Climate Power senior adviser Alex Witt. “As Trump’s radical Project 2025 platform proves, Big Oil is getting its money’s worth at the expense of everyone else. Under Trump’s plan, Big Oil gets $110 billion in tax breaks and higher profits while the rest of us get dirtier air and water, higher prices, and more climate-fueled extreme weather.”    

Trump’s Project 2025 plan lays out an extreme MAGA agenda to take over our government and give oil and gas and other corporations more power and more control over our lives.. In fact, Project 2025 even plans to privatize the National Weather Service to control the monitoring of extreme heat and climate information by suppressing scientists.

Voters reject Trump’s Project 2025 agenda and they view it as a “takeover” with 77% finding it concerning that Project 2025 proposed a plan to eliminate the National Weather Service, including 79% Non-MAGA Republicans.

BACKGROUND

• Trump asked Big Oil CEOs for $1 billion to help him stay out of jail and get back into office while promising he’d deliver their entire policy wish list.

• Trump framed his offer as a ‘deal’ for Big Oil, and he was right: analysis shows they’d get $110 billion in tax breaks alone — an 11,000% return on investment.

• Meanwhile, the oil industry is literally drawing up ready-to-sign executive orders for Trump to greenlight even more pollution and profiteering.

• Trump is plotting to decimate climate and clean energy progress that would cost $1 trillion in investment and gut President Biden’s clean energy plan, which has created more than 300,000 jobs while lowering costs and making big corporations pay their fair share.

• Trump will end tax credits that have already saved Americans $1 billion on EVs, which in turn, offer owners thousands more in savings on reduced fuel and maintenance costs.

• Trump will give Big Oil free rein to pad profits by shipping US gas overseas, hiking domestic gas prices by a projected 14%, and exacerbating the climate crisis.

• Trump will gut landmark pollution standards for cars that are set to provide nearly $100 billion in annual net benefits and have been embraced by the U.S. auto industry.

• In May, the FTC charged a Big Oil CEO for efforts to collude with OPEC — the Saudi-led oil cartel — to artificially reduce output and inflate prices “at the expense of U.S. households and businesses” –– possibly costing Americans an estimated $500 per car.

• Top Democrats — outraged by this unlawful profiteering — urged the Justice Department to use every tool to “prevent and prosecute collusion and price fixing” in the oil industry.

• But Trump responded by suggesting he’d pressure the independent consumer protection agency to relax scrutiny of the industry at a Big Oil fundraiser.

• Big Oil has already helped funnel millions to Trump’s campaign, the PAC that pays his legal fees, and even the legal defense fund for his insurrection co-defendants.

• A Big Oil tycoon tried to help pay Trump’s bond. In between trial days, he flew straight to Big Oil fundraisers. And right after he was convicted, his Big Oil donors doubled down.