After Posing With Hurricane Victims, Trump Heads to Big Oil Fundraisers in Texas

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump reportedly planned to attend two fundraisers in Texas with Big Oil executives on Wednesday, just two days after visiting hurricane-ravaged Georgia, drawing criticism from experts who said that the former president was beholden to the very industry that's driving an increase in the frequency and intensity of extreme weather events.

Trump's itinerary included a luncheon in Midland, in the heart of the oil-rich Permian Basin, and a reception in Houston, according to media reports based on people familiar with the events. He visited southern Georgia on Monday following Hurricane Helene's devastating strike on the area and other parts of the U.S. Southeast; the storm's death toll was at least 180.

"Hosting a fundraiser with Big Oil CEOs while we're still counting the bodies from Hurricane Helene is like hosting a fundraiser with the [National Rifle Association] in the midst of a school shooting," Jamie Henn, the founder and director of Fossil Free Media, told Common Dreams in a statement.

"Trump's Project 2025 agenda is only going to increase climate disasters like Hurricane Helene by pumping ever more greenhouse gas pollution into our atmosphere," Henn added. "He's consistently put polluters over people and it would only get worse in a second term."

Trump's running mate, Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio), has also attended many fundraisers in his place. Henn referred to Vance as "oily" in a social media post during the vice presidential debate Tuesday night.

Collin Rees, campaign manager at Oil Change U.S., agreed with Henn's criticism of the pair.

"These fundraisers confirm Donald Trump and JD Vance are fully bought by the oil and gas industry that's harming communities and driving the climate crisis that's supercharging storms like Helene," Rees told Common Dreams in a separate statement. "Their empty promises about clean air and clean water ring hollow with these greedy cash grabs from the corporate executives most responsible for climate disaster."

Heavy rains from Hurricane Helene caused record flooding and damage on September 28, 2024 in Asheville, North Carolina. (Photo: Melissa Sue Gerrits/Getty Images)

Trump has been heavily outspent by Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic presidential nominee, who has been buoyed by contributions from Wall Street and Silicon Valley.

Trump, for his part, has long courted the fossil fuel industry and served its interests as president, rolling back more than 100 environmental rules from 2017 to 2021.

In April, Trump made a quid pro quo offer to Big Oil executives during a gathering at his Mar-a-Lago club, telling them to give him $1 billion in contributions in exchange for environmental deregulation if he retook office, according to The Washington Post, which broke the story in May.

One of the hosts for Wednesday's planned reception in Houston is Jeff Hildebrand, the billionaire CEO of Hilcorp Energy Co., a major Trump backer. Hildebrand was not among the executives reported to be present when the quid pro quo offer was made, though not all of the attendees of the Mar-a-Lago event were named by the Post.

Trump has long denied that climate change is a real phenomenon, and he's added to a long history of baseless, unscientific claims in the past week. On Thursday, he asserted, without explanation, that nuclear warming, rather than global heating, was "the warming that you're going to have to be very careful with." On Tuesday, he said that under what he called a "green new scam," Democrats were going to take down all the buildings in Manhattan and rebuild them without windows.

Preliminary analysis shows that the climate crisis contributed to the devastation in the Southeast, which faced an "astronomical" level of rainfall. Deanne Criswell, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) administrator, said the warm temperatures over the Gulf of Mexico helped strengthen Hurricane Helene.

Both Henn and Rees called for Harris to be more aggressive in taking on Big Oil.

"I'd like to see Vice President Harris play sharper offense on exactly this issue," Henn said.

"People are asking who is going to pay the costs of these disasters and Harris is well setup to provide a crisp and clear answer: Make polluters pay," he added.

Rees said that Trump's close relationship with the fossil fuel industry created an opening for the Democratic ticket.

"This is an opportunity for Kamala Harris and [Democratic vice presidential nominee] Tim Walz to show a clean contrast by laying out plans to confront the Big Oil," he said. "We must break the dirty energy cycle by ending fossil fuel subsidies and advancing a managed phaseout of fossil fuels with a just transition."

Rees said that Trump was "totally under the thumb of the fossil fuel industry."

Trump's first Wednesday destination is an essential one for the industry. The greater Permian Basin accounts for nearly 40% of U.S. oil and gas production. Experts have called the area's oil extraction a "climate bomb."

For Trump's critics, the idea that the former president has little genuine sympathy for hurricane victims may come as little surprise. Trump was heavily criticized for the lackluster federal response to Hurricane Maria, a storm that devastated Puerto Rico in 2017. An inspector general's report later found the Trump administration had unnecessarily delayed $20 billion in aid to the U.S. territory.