The following is part of a post by Robert Reich:
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 but don’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.
Alex Witt, a senior adviser for oil and gas with Climate Power, said Trump will do whatever the oil industry wants if they support him. With Trump, Witt said, “everything has a price.”
But isn’t this an out-and-out bribe? And aren’t bribes illegal? Trump is literally willing to take bribes in exchange for the destruction of the planet.