Oil Companies Spending Heavily on Trump

August 7, 2020

Looking back on the 2016 election the oil and gas industry played both sides, like most American industries tend to do, by contributing to both Trump and Clinton. The 2020 election cycle tells a different story with companies contributing mainly to President Trump.

Quartz reports on the oil and gas industry’s donations in the 2016 White House race, “The industry gave $1.2 million to Donald Trump, whose campaign won over swing states such as Pennsylvania by chanting ‘drill, baby, drill.’ But it also bequeathed $1 million to Democrat Hillary Clinton, who had promised to put ‘coal companies out of business.’”

Reports for the 2020 election cycle illustrate the change in environment of the oil and gas industry’s support, with a shift in donations going mainly to President Trump.

The industry has donated $936,000 to his 2020 reelection campaign, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. That’s roughly triple the haul of his presumptive Democratic challenger Joe Biden, who has collected only $265,000 in industry donations as of August.

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The reason seems clear. Biden has embraced the climate movement and his party’s enthusiasm for a clean energy transition. Under Biden’s $2 trillion climate plan announced this July, the US will achieve zero net-emissions by 2050, eliminate electric grid emissions by 2035, promote renewable wind and solar energy development, and recommit to the Paris climate accords.

Biden also agreed (along with every major Democratic presidential nominee) to end the extraction of fossil fuels on public lands. That’s significantly more ambitious than Clinton’s proposal in 2016.

There is no question this has to do with Biden fully embracing the radical left’s climate movement. The oil and gas industry is donating to a candidate that will protect their current business model and the millions of American jobs they provide.

Trump has shown that he is one of the most pro-fossil fuel presidents America has seen in recent years. The industry has flourished under his presidency, earning the U.S. the number one spot as the world’s top oil exporter. A Biden presidency would lead to the dismantling of the valuable industry that has shown immense growth and provided countless benefits domestically.