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For Immediate Release
March, 13 2020, 12:00am EDT
Contact:
Ryan Schleeter, Senior Communications Specialist, Greenpeace USA:
ryan.schleeter@greenpeace.org
Trump Takes First Step Toward Ill-fated Oil Industry Bailout in Response to COVID-19 Pandemic
Today, Donald Trump announced he would direct the Department of Energy (DOE) to purchase millions of barrels of oil for the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR). This effectively means the DOE will take roughly 80 million barrels of oil off the market. At current prices, the total cost could exceed $2.6 billion in public funds [1]. By comparison, the Families First Coronavirus Response Act introduced in the House of Representatives today details at least $1.68 billion in support for public health provisions and working families [2].
WASHINGTON
Today, Donald Trump announced he would direct the Department of Energy (DOE) to purchase millions of barrels of oil for the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR). This effectively means the DOE will take roughly 80 million barrels of oil off the market. At current prices, the total cost could exceed $2.6 billion in public funds [1]. By comparison, the Families First Coronavirus Response Act introduced in the House of Representatives today details at least $1.68 billion in support for public health provisions and working families [2].
In response, Greenpeace USA Senior Climate Campaigner John Noel said:
"Trump's response to a global pandemic is to put billionaires and corporate polluters ahead of American families. There's no evidence that this handout would protect jobs, pensions, benefits, or ease the hardships facing fossil fuel workers or communities confronting the COVID-19 outbreak right now. It's nothing more than a gift to the industry that created the climate crisis.
"This is the time to invest in a Green New Deal and chart a new course for a world beyond fossil fuels. That's how we can truly protect workers from the kind of economic uncertainty we've already seen this week, ensure long-term prosperity for communities, and give ourselves a chance at navigating out of two crises at once."
The decision comes days after Trump officials floated a broader federal bailout for fossil fuel companies hit by tanking oil prices [3]. Today's handout likely does not need Congressional approval, but Congress could intervene to stop this and further measures -- such as lowering royalty rates for oil and gas production on federal lands or giving out low-interest loans to oil and gas companies. Senators Jeff Merkley (D-OR), Edward Markey (D-MA), and Bernie Sanders (I-VT) proposed legislation [4] today that would bar the Trump administration from using the COVID-19 pandemic as an excuse to give handouts to the oil industry.
Greenpeace is a global, independent campaigning organization that uses peaceful protest and creative communication to expose global environmental problems and promote solutions that are essential to a green and peaceful future.
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California Gov. Hopeful Steyer Proposes Fund to Guarantee Jobs for Workers Displaced by AI
"Most politicians still fail to recognize or downplay the threat of AI to workers, at the behest of Silicon Valley," said one veteran labor organizer.
May 08, 2026
In a first for a statewide candidate, California gubernatorial contender Tom Steyer on Friday proposed the creation of a wealth fund that would be paid into by artificial intelligence companies, with the money being used to fund jobs in key sectors of the economy.
The billionaire hedge fund founder-turned-environmental advocate, who has come out in support of a proposed tax on billioionaires' wealth and a single-payer healthcare system for the state and has described himself as a "class traitor," told Wired about his proposal to use a "token tax" to fund what he called the Golden State Sovereign Wealth Fund.
Big Tech companies would be taxed “a fraction of a cent for every unit of data processed” for AI uses, and some of the money directed to the fund through the taxation plan would be earmarked for jobs for people who lost employment due to the expansion of AI.
Jobs in healthcare, housing construction, and modernizing the state's energy infrastructure would be prioritized in the fund.
Steyer told Wired the plan would make California "the first major economy in the world" to guarantee jobs to people who have been displaced by AI.
“People all over this state are terrified that AI is going to hollow out this whole economy and they’re going to lose their jobs. Young people are worried they’ll never get a job,” Steyer told Wired. “We believe this can be an amazing transformational technology in many ways, but we’re not in the business of leaving people in California behind.”
The outplacement firm Challenger, Gray, and Christmas released a report Thursday showing that for the second straight month, AI was the leading reason companies cited for laying off workers. AI-related job cuts accounted for 26% of the 88,387 layoffs the firm recorded, with 21,490 people losing their jobs due to AI.
“Technology companies continue to announce large-scale cuts and are leading all industries in layoff announcements. They are also often citing AI spend and innovation. Regardless of whether individual jobs are being replaced by AI, the money for those roles is,” said Andy Challenger, chief revenue officer for Challenger, Gray, and Christmas.
Last October, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) released an analysis showing that AI and automation could eliminate nearly 100 million jobs in a decade—yet President Donald Trump and the Republican Party are aggressively pushing to stop states from regulating the industry.
Trump signed an executive order late last year calling on the Department of Justice to create an AI Litigation Task Force, which would target laws and proposals to require studies on the impact of AI on jobs, protect people from AI companion chatbots, and regulate the technology in other ways.
“Not regulating AI doesn’t seem remotely reasonable,” Steyer said Friday.
At a debate earlier this week, Steyer said AI cannot be allowed to "create 12 trillionaires and millions of people who lose their jobs."
"The number-one thing that we have to do is make sure AI is a tool for workers and not a replacement of workers," he said. "And we absolutely need to own part of it."
We can't let AI create 12 trillionaires and millions of people who lose their jobs. The people of California need to share in the wealth AI creates. pic.twitter.com/ts2Ru1J5IX
— Tom Steyer (@TomSteyer) May 6, 2026
Charles Idelson, former communications director for National Nurses United, applauded Steyer for "addressing a growing danger for California's working class."
"Most politicians still fail to recognize or downplay the threat of AI to workers, at the behest of Silicon Valley," said Idelson.
Steyer said in a memo that in addition to protecting Californians from job loss, the fund created by the token tax would "strengthen the foundation of the state’s economy, invest in our communities, and create beautiful, vibrant public spaces."
“To support these efforts," said the campaign, "Tom will also invest heavily in training and apprenticeship programs across the state.”
Steyer's plan for AI also includes an expansion of unemployment insurance and the creation of the AI Worker Protection Administration that would adopt new rules to protect workers' rights as AI continues to develop.
Devin Murphy, director for digital mobilization for Steyer's campaign, said the state faces a "defining question" after its tech industry helped build the AI economy: "Who benefits from it?"
"Tom Steyer is putting forward one of the first serious plans to ensure AI strengthens the middle class," said Murphy, "instead of hollowing it out."
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Top Oversight Democrat Pushes Pentagon Watchdog to Probe 'Shady' Trump Family Contracts
Asking for an investigation, Rep. Robert Garcia noted that the Department of Defense “repeatedly awarded lucrative DOD contracts to companies after they became affiliated with the president’s sons.”
May 08, 2026
The top Democrat on the House Oversight Committee is urging the watchdog overseeing the Pentagon to investigate "shady" defense contracts that may have benefited the family of President Donald Trump.
Rep. Robert Garcia (D-Calif.), the ranking member of the Oversight Committee, sent a letter on Friday to the Department of Defense inspector general, Platte B. Moring III, calling for an investigation after the administration "repeatedly awarded lucrative DOD contracts to companies after they became affiliated with the president’s sons," Eric and Donald Trump Jr.
"While Trump’s illegal war in Iran is driving up gas and grocery bills for working families, his sons are cashing in on defense contracts funded by hardworking taxpayers," Garcia said.
He pointed to a contract awarded last week for the Air Force to buy an undisclosed number of interceptor drones from the West Palm Beach-based company Powerus, drones that Bloomberg reported have never been used in combat. The company has not disclosed the terms of the deal or the size of the contract.
But the deal instantly raised eyebrows, given that just a month before, the Trump sons were brought on board as Powerus investors after a golf course company they backed, Aureus Greenway Holdings, announced plans to merge with the drone manufacturer.
The Guardian reported that the company had pushed hard for its technology to be sold to Persian Gulf countries facing attacks from Iran in retaliation for the war that the elder Trump started. “These countries are under enormous pressure to buy from the sons of the president so he will do what they want,” Richard Painter, a former chief White House ethics lawyer under President George W. Bush, told the paper.
Garcia also pointed to a $24 million contract awarded last month to Foundation Future Industries, a company that produces humanoid robots designed to participate in warfare. Similarly, just a month before the lucrative contract was announced, Eric Trump became chief strategy adviser for Foundation Future after previously investing in the company.
"Since the start of President Trump’s second term, his adult children have started conspicuously involving themselves in a variety of defense-related contracting firms with specialties including rockets, robots, martial arts, and drones," Garcia wrote. "These new engagements come despite little history of the Trump family working in those sectors prior to January 2025. Many of these firms have then received grants, loans, and contracts following the Trump family involvement, raising questions about the ability of these firms to fulfill their obligations."
"Eric Trump and Donald Trump Jr.’s purchases, consultancies, and advisory roles create an unprecedented intertwining of President Trump’s personal financial interests with US policy and national security," Garcia continued. "Each new venture opens new opportunities to direct DOD funds to the first family’s pockets, and the Trump Administration appears to be taking advantage of those opportunities."
The weapons contracts are part of a much larger pattern of the Trump children being put in positions to profit from administration contracts.
The Financial Times reported in December that during the first year of Trump's presidency, his administration awarded more than $735 million in contracts to companies in the portfolio of 1789 Capital, a fund created by pro-Trump donors that Donald Trump Jr. joined in 2024.
Trump Jr. said last year that he and the 1789 firm "understand what the administration wants to do, because we helped craft some of that messaging," which Garcia described in Friday's letter as an admission "that the Trump family is using insider information for its own business interests."
Democrats in Congress have repeatedly demanded answers from the Defense Department about its processes for preventing self-dealing by Trump's sons and others with ties to the president.
In response to a letter sent in January by Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), the Defense Department said in March that its primary method of mitigating conflicts of interest is "through the diligent collection and review of financial disclosure forms for employees."
Garcia said that "this does not prevent Trump administration officials from directing taxpayer dollars with the purpose of enriching the Trump family, nor does it prevent the Trump family from profiting from insider knowledge of future Pentagon plans."
Noting the nearly $2.5 billion it has raked in through cryptocurrency and other digital investments, according to an estimate by Democrats on the House Oversight Committee, Garcia said that "given this pattern of using the presidency for personal grift, the Trump family’s ventures into defense contracting are all the more alarming."
Garcia requested that the department open an investigation into what safeguards exist to prevent self-dealing by the Trump family and to disclose what contracts it currently has with companies tied to them and how they were evaluated for potential conflicts of interest.
He said, "The American people deserve to know that DOD awards contracts of taxpayer dollars ethically and prioritizes the best solutions for our national security—not who can pay the Trump family more."
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Maryland Residents to Pay $1.6 Billion More in Power Bills Due to Out-of-State Data Centers: Complaint
"Maryland customers have neither caused the need for these billions in new transmission projects, nor will they meaningfully benefit from them," said Maryland People’s Counsel David S. Lapp.
May 08, 2026
A top state utilities regulator is calling foul on an effort to shift the power cost of out-of-state artificial intelligence data centers onto Maryland residents.
Maryland's Office of People's Counsel on Thursday filed a complaint with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) against electric grid operator PJM Interconnection objecting to plans that it said would force residents in the state to pay $1.6 billion in data center-driven transmission costs over the next decade.
The complaint states that the transmission cost allocation methodology PJM is using "broadly socializes" the cost of increased power demands that is being driven by AI data centers.
"That result is unjust and unreasonable and violates the cost causation principles that have long governed transmission cost allocation and that this commission has repeatedly affirmed," the complaint says. "PJM’s tariff imposes these costs on Maryland electric customers even though Maryland customers do not meaningfully cause nor benefit from those investments."
The Office of People's Counsel pointed to the massive number of data centers built in neighboring Virginia as a primary culprit for added strain on the electric grid.
"Amidst national data center growth, Virginia stands as the epicenter," the complaint says. "Virginia is the largest data center market in the world... As of December 2024, data centers represented 3.6 GW of demand... reflecting, since 2013, a 660% increase in megawatt-hour consumption."
This explosive growth in energy demand is only expected to intensify over the next several years, the complaint continues, noting that "PJM projects 32 GW of peak load growth across its territory by 2030, of which approximately 30 GW is attributable to data centers."
As a remedy, the complaint asks FERC to "require PJM to take immediate action to assign data center-driven transmission costs to the PJM zones where the data center customers are located" instead of shifting the cost to Marylanders.
Commenting on his office's complaint, Maryland People’s Counsel David S. Lapp said that the attempt to saddle Maryland consumers with a $1.6 billion bill for facilities outside the state's borders shows "PJM’s cost allocation rules are broken."
"Maryland customers have neither caused the need for these billions in new transmission projects," Lapp added, "nor will they meaningfully benefit from them."
Data centers have become political lightning rods in recent months, as residents from across the country object to their mass resource consumption, which is leading to a major spike in utilities bills, as well as the noise pollution they generate.
As CNBC reported earlier this year, PJM currently projects that it will be a 6 GW short of its reliability requirements in 2027 thanks to the added demand from data centers.
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) earlier this year introduced a bill that would impose a nationwide moratorium on AI data center construction “until strong national safeguards are in place to protect workers, consumers, and communities, defend privacy and civil rights, and ensure these technologies do not harm our environment.”
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