Donald Trump Once Again Delivers for Fossil Fuel CEOs in Texas

Washington, D.C. – As polls show Donald Trump trailing Joe Biden in Texas, Trump today visited the battleground state to collect campaign cash from the industry that has most benefited from Trump’s anti-science presidency.

Trump’s schedule included a speech at a Midland oil rig owned by Double Eagle Energy Holdings, whose cofounders, Cody Campbell and John Sellers, have contributed more than $60,000 to the Trump campaign’s joint fundraising committee, Trump Victory. Campbell and Sellers sold off 72,000 acres in the Permian Basin in the last few years for $2.8 billion; yet, Double Eagle Holdings and its related entities received between $350,000 and $1 million from the Small Business Administration’s Paycheck Protection Plan (PPP) program.

Trump also held a high-dollar fundraising luncheon in Odessa. The $2,800 per-head price is a bargain for oil and gas executives who have benefited from Donald Trump’s pro-pollution agenda.

“We are seeing Donald Trump’s corruption in action,” said Lori Lodes, Executive Director of Climate Power 2020. “Trump is in the most polluted area of the country during a worldwide pandemic. Yet our President is focused on raising money for his campaign and touring oil rigs owned by two of his billionaire fossil fuel CEO donors. They are getting exactly what they paid for from Trump.”

Hours before Trump landed in Texas, two of his top surrogates, U.S. Senator Ted Cruz and former Energy Secretary Rick Perry, published op-eds in local newspapers peddling lies and misinformation about the Green New Deal, Joe Biden’s clean energy plan, and Trump’s record.

In reality, Trump and his GOP allies’ war on clean energy and failure in handling the pandemic has already cost more than 1.1 million clean energy jobs. Additionally, Trump prioritized coronavirus stimulus programs shaped by oil lobbyists to give more than $2 billion to oil and gas companies—with no requirements to keep workers on the payroll. In fact, more than 200 fossil fuel companies received between $116.4 million and $272 million in Paycheck Protection Plan (PPP) loans while reporting that they retained zero employees with the COVID-19 emergency relief funds.

The oil and gas industry in Midland and Odessa has received between $151.7 million and $366.3 million from the PPP program, according to data released by the Small Business Administration.

The love affair between Trump and wealthy oil and gas CEOs is nothing new. Since the start of 2020, Trump and affiliated campaign groups have received more than $2 million from the oil and gas industry. In return, Trump has repeatedly delivered on fossil fuel interests’ pro-pollution wish list—at the expense of our environment, health, and economy.