Oil Industry Helps Trump’s Texas Fundraising Efforts

Oil executives contributed to Donald Trump’s fundraising efforts, which raised as much as $40 million in Texas alone this week, people who attended the events and are familiar with the fundraising haul told Bloomberg.

Continental Resources chair Harold Hamm and Occidental Petroleum’s chief executive Vicki Hollub were among the attendees of a fundraising event in Houston on Wednesday, Bloomberg’s sources said.  

Trump, however, didn’t elaborate too much on energy issues during his speech, and one billionaire oil executive told Bloomberg he left the event early due to a lack of discussion of specific energy issues. 

The oil industry is contributing millions of U.S. dollars to the Trump presidential campaign, helping the presumptive Republican nominee top his rival Joe Biden’s campaign war chest in April.

Bloomberg reported this week that the Trump campaign raised a total of $76 million last month, which compared to $51 million for Biden. Per the New York Times, the Trump campaign has raised $7.3 million from the oil industry since the start of the year. And they are organizing events to help raise even more money ahead of the November elections.

A lot of oil tycoons have been supporters of the Republican Party. But now, this support has become more marked in light of the Biden Administration's energy policies—especially some of them, which have reduced federal leasing for oil and gas drilling and introduced stricter emissions regulations.

Trump has asked executives of some of the largest U.S. oil producers to raise $1 billion for his campaign to return to the White House and promised to scrap many of the Biden Administration’s environmental policies, the Washington Post reported exclusively earlier this month, quoting sources familiar with a meeting.  

Trump met with the top industry executives at his Mar-a-Lago Club in April to hear the grievances of the American oil industry, which has constantly criticized the energy policies of President Biden, focused on reducing emissions and promoting clean energy sources.

Trump’s response to the executives, “You all are wealthy enough, he said, that you should raise $1 billion to return me to the White House,” the Washington Post quoted the sources, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe a private conversation.

By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com

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