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Trump Admin Has Hired 100+ 'Fossil Fuel Insiders' to Fill Top Energy, Environmental Agency Roles
One of them described her job as offering “concierge, white-glove service” to oil, gas, and coal companies seeking permits from regulators.
Oct 08, 2025
A top energy adviser to President Donald Trump admitted in an August interview that the administration is offering "concierge, white-glove service" to fossil fuel companies while blocking and defunding clean energy projects.
The comments, reported Tuesday by the Washington Post, came from Brittany Kelm, a senior policy adviser for Trump's National Energy Dominance Council (NEDC), which was established within the Department of the Interior in February.
"We're like this little tiger team, concierge, white-glove service, essentially," Kelm said on the Lobby Shop podcast, "We were put together very particularly with the president's priorities in mind on energy. So keeping coal plants open, establishing critical mineral mining domestically, and then that broader supply chain."
She described her role in the council as being to help oil, gas, and coal companies navigate "the politicals" of agencies that grant permits for new projects. Companies, she said, "can walk out of our office, and they have all the contacts they need" for regulators in the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and the departments of the Interior and Commerce.
"We know how to unstick what is stuck," Kelm said. "It's a lot of undoing old policies and getting rid of regulatory burdens."
Mahyar Sorour, the director of the Sierra Club's Beyond Fossil Fuels policy project, responded: "The reality of fossil fuel companies getting white-glove, concierge service from the Trump administration would be comical if it weren't so sinister."
"During the election," she continued, "Trump told oil and gas executives that he would clear the way for more production without any safeguards if they gave his campaign a billion dollars—they did, and now Trump is blocking clean energy and giving the oil and gas industry immense handouts in return."
Since retaking office in January, Trump has sought to expand the production of oil, gas, and coal with reckless abandon, without regard to the impacts of carbon emissions on the planet or other environmental impacts of pollution.
As the rest of the world has surged its use of wind and solar projects, surpassing coal for the first time this year, the Department of Energy made a $625 million investment to "expand and reinvigorate the coal industry," which is the dirtiest form of energy.
And July's massive GOP budget contained billions of dollars worth of handouts for the fossil fuel industry, boosted drilling on millions of acres of public lands, mandated oil and gas lease sales, and imposed new fees on renewable development.
At the same time, Trump has singlehandedly reduced the US's growth outlook for renewables by 45%, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA).
As the Post reports:
His administration has held up permits for solar and wind projects since July and blocked wind farms outright. The Energy Department last week canceled $7.6 billion in funding for projects aimed at curbing climate change including installation of renewables, grid upgrades and carbon capture projects. That's on top of $27 billion in funding for clean energy that the Environmental Protection Agency is seeking to claw back.
Alan Zibel, an energy and environmental policy researcher for the consumer advocacy group Public Citizen, joked that while the "White House rolls out 'concierge, white-glove service' for fossil fuels... wind and solar aren't even allowed inside the Motel 6."
This is put on stark display by a report co-authored by Zibel, and released Monday by Public Citizen and the Revolving Door Project, which found that, under Trump, the agencies in charge of regulating energy and environmental policy "have made dozens of hires from the fossil fuel sector, mining conglomerates, and other polluting industries, as well as others who are well-paid to support a dirty energy agenda, such as corporate lawyers and the staffers from far-right think tanks directly tied to Trump's dirty energy agenda."
The report examined 111 executive branch appointees tasked with energy and environmental policymaking across nine agencies and found that 43 are former employees of fossil fuel companies.
While the EPA and Energy Department are each crawling with more than a dozen industry plants, no agency has more than the Interior Department, which has 32 in total.
One of them is Kelm herself, who, according to the report, "has spent her entire career working in Big Oil, most recently doing corporate relations for Shell, and previously in policy for Valero, community affairs for Noble Energy, and other roles for Texas-based oil companies like EnCore Permian and the Permian Basin Petroleum Association."
Far from just lower-level appointees, several agency heads have direct industry ties. Secretary of Energy Chris Wright was formerly the CEO of the hydraulic fracking company Liberty Energy and, according to the report, "regularly makes public statements that downplay the effects of climate change, carbon pollution, and the environmental impacts of fracking."
The administration also contains at least 14 corporate lawyers who worked for fossil fuel interests. David Fotouhi, the assistant secretary of the EPA, formerly worked as a lawyer at Gibson Dunn, which has represented oil and gas giants like the American Petroleum Institute, ConocoPhillips, and Energy Transfer. The law firm also helped to advise polluters like Chevron on how to beat lawsuits from state and local governments seeking to hold them legally liable for spreading misinformation about the climate crisis.
The administration also includes at least 12 officials directly handpicked from right-wing think tanks backed by fossil fuel money. Brooke Rollins, secretary of the Department of Agriculture (USDA), helped found the America First Policy Institute (AFPI) in 2021 with Texas oil billionaire and GOP megadonor Tim Dunn.
The oilman funded Rollins' organization to the tune of $400,000, with the explicit goal of staffing the next Republican administration with appointees who would gut US climate policy.
"It would be ideal if we could get rid of this ‘CO2 as a pollutant' business," Dunn said at an AFPI event in 2023.
"Texas-based billionaires have taken over the Trump administration, providing a steady stream of staffers and an extreme set of policy ideas that consciously favors the most polluting forms of energy," said Toni Aguilar Rosenthal, a senior researcher with the Revolving Door Project. "Trump's policies aid the fossil fuel industry's exploitation of the public sphere for private profit while simultaneously sabotaging renewables and ensuring that the US remains trapped in a dirty energy economy."
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Lawsuit Seeks to Stop 'Arbitrary and Capricious' Trump Attack on New England Wind Farm
"My experience tells me the discovery phase will be fascinating as the lawyers dig into the true motivations and scheming behind this ugly fossil fuel thuggery," said Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse.
Sep 04, 2025
The attorneys general of Connecticut and Rhode Island on Thursday joined renewable energy companies in a lawsuit challenging the Trump administration's suspension of an offshore wind farm that, if completed, will power hundreds of thousands of homes in the two New England states.
Connecticut Attorney General William Tong and Rhode Island Attorney General Peter Neronha, both Democrats, announced they are suing "to overturn the baseless stop-work order abruptly issued on August 22, 2025, which halted the construction of Revolution Wind," a project located 15 miles south of the Rhode Island coast.
"Revolution Wind is fully permitted, nearly complete and months from providing enough American-made, clean, affordable energy to power 350,000 homes," Tong said in a statement. "Now, with zero justification, [US President Donald] Trump wants to mothball the project, send workers home, and saddle Connecticut families with millions of dollars in higher energy costs. This kind of erratic and reckless governing is blatantly illegal, and we're suing to stop it."
Acting US Bureau of Ocean and Energy Management (BOEM) Director Matthew Giacona issued the order directing Rob Keiser, head of asset management at the North American branch of the Danish firm Ørsted—the world's largest offshore wind developer—to "halt all ongoing activities related to the Revolution Wind project on the outer continental shelf."
Giacona's order—which cited "concerns related to the protection of national security interests of the United States"—is to remain in effect pending review by BOEM, which is part of the US Interior Department.
Ratepayers could have saved $400 million last winter if the 3.5 GW of offshore wind in New England was operational.Meanwhile, Trump just halted construction on Rhode Island's Revolution Wind and is trying to ban wind energy entirely. You can thank Trump when your energy bills continue to rise.
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— LCV – League of Conservation Voters 🌎 (@lcv.org) September 4, 2025 at 6:31 AM
At the time of the order, Ørsted said that Revolution Wind was "80% complete, with all offshore foundations installed and 45 out of 65 wind turbines installed."
The lawsuit filed by Revolution Wind—a joint venture between Ørsted and Skyborn Renewables—seeks to lift BOEM's order. An attorney for Ørsted contended Thursday in the US District Court for the District of Columbia that Trump's "apparent hostility toward offshore wind" was behind the stop-work order.
"The project has spent billions of dollars in reliance on these valid approvals," the Revolution Wind filing states. "The stop-work order is invalid and must be set aside because it was issued without statutory authority, in violation of agency regulations and procedures and the 5th Amendment's due process clause, and is arbitrary and capricious."
US Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), who previously condemned the stop-work order, said Thursday that "if Trump's plan is to raise families' energy prices, cut American jobs, turbocharge climate change, and accelerate the Great Climate Insurance Crisis, he's knocking it out of the park with his all-out attack on American offshore wind."
"Wind power is one of the fastest, safest, cheapest ways to meet rising electricity demand and cut energy prices," the senator continued. "The only winners here are the corrupt fossil fuel donors who bankrolled Trump's campaign."
In a separate social media post on Thursday addressing the new lawsuit, Whitehouse said that "my experience tells me the discovery phase will be fascinating as the lawyers dig into the true motivations and scheming behind this ugly fossil fuel thuggery."
Revolution Wind is at least the second major wind project hit with a BOEM stop-work order during the second administration of Trump, who campaigned on a "drill, baby, drill" pro-fossil fuels platform.
Trump has also antagonized Denmark by threatening to take control of Greenland, a Danish territory. Last month, Denmark's Foreign Ministry summoned Mark Stroh, Trump's charge d'affaires in the Nordic nation, following a report by the main Danish public broadcaster alleging that three Americans with ties to Trump have been attempting to instigate tensions between Denmark and Greenland.
Thursday's lawsuit follows another multistate complaint filed in May by 18 attorneys general seeking to block Trump's effort to pause offshore wind development via an executive order issued on the president's first day in office.
"This arbitrary and unnecessary directive threatens the loss of thousands of good-paying jobs and billions in investments, and it is delaying our transition away from the fossil fuels that harm our health and our planet," Democratic New York Attorney General Letitia James, who is leading the coalition of states, said at the time.
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Trump Proposal Called a 'Death Sentence for Plants and Animals on the Brink of Extinction'
"Humanity's survival depends on biodiversity, and no one voted to fast-track extinction," one conservationist stressed. "This is a five-alarm fire."
Apr 09, 2025
A leading conservation group is sounding the alarm over a new Trump administration attack on threatened and endangered species: an attempt to redefine "harm" as it relates to a key federal law.
The law? The Endangered Species Act (ESA), a longtime target of U.S. President Donald Trump and congressional Republicans, despite being signed in 1973 by then-President Richard Nixon.
The Center for Biological Diversity (CBD) on Tuesday noticed that the Department of the Interior—now led by Trump appointee Doug Burgum, a billionaire ally of the fossil fuel industry—sent a proposed rule to the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs for review.
The Monday proposal is not yet available, but on a public online dashboard it is titled, "Redefinition of 'Harm.'" There is also a Tuesday submission from the Department of Commerce titled, "Defining 'Harm' Under the Endangered Species Act."
CBD called it "the first step toward stripping habitat protections from rare plants and animals headed toward extinction."
"The malignant greed driving these policies threatens to greatly increase destruction of the natural world and turbocharge the extinction crisis."
Under the ESA, people cannot "take" an endangered species of fish or wildlife—and take is defined as "harass, harm, pursue, hunt, shoot, wound, kill, trap, capture, or collect." Within that definition, harm means injuring or killing wildlife.
The law states that "such act may include significant habitat modification or degradation where it actually kills or injures wildlife by significantly impairing essential behavioral patterns, including breeding, feeding, or sheltering."
Noah Greenwald, CBD's co-director of endangered species, explained Tuesday that "weakening the definition of harm would cut the heart out of the Endangered Species Act and be a death sentence for plants and animals on the brink of extinction."
"The Trump administration has been systematically killing protections for our air, water, wildlife, and climate like a vicious cancer," he continued. "The malignant greed driving these policies threatens to greatly increase destruction of the natural world and turbocharge the extinction crisis. We'll keep fighting for each and every one of these plants and animals."
"Unless habitat destruction is prohibited, spotted owls, sea turtles, salmon and so many more animals and plants won't have a chance," Greenwald warned. "Humanity's survival depends on biodiversity, and no one voted to fast-track extinction. This is a five-alarm fire."
TRUMP TO ENDANGERED SPECIES: DROP DEAD! The Trump administration launched a process to redefine what it means to “harm” threatened & endangered species, the first step toward stripping habitat protections from rare plants & animals headed toward extinction. biologicaldiversity.org/w/news/press...
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— Ted Zukoski (@tedzukoski.bsky.social) April 8, 2025 at 4:04 PM
The redefinition push is just part of the GOP's assault on the ESA. As Common Dreams reported in late March, Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives have been working to advance a pair of laws, the ESA Amendments Act, which aims to streamline regulatory and permitting processes, and the Pet and Livestock Protection Act, which would strip federal protections from the gray wolf within 60 days and prohibit judicial review of the action.
There have also been direct attacks on the law from the White House. When Trump returned to office in January, he swiftly declared a "national energy emergency" intended to deliver on his promise to "drill, baby, drill" for climate-wrecking fossil fuels. A section of the executive order effectively says the ESA can't be an obstacle to energy development, which concerned conservationists.
"This executive order, in a lot of ways, is a gift to the oil and gas industry and is being sold as a way to respond to the emergency declaration by President Trump," Gib Brogan, a campaign director with conservation group Oceana, told The Associated Press in January. "There is no emergency. The species continue to suffer. And this executive order will only accelerate the decline of endangered species in the United States."
CBD's Greenwald also blasted the order at the time, declaring that "with U.S. oil production at an all-time high, the real national emergencies are the extinction crisis and climate change."
"We're losing plant and animal species at an unprecedented rate, and our planet is heating up with dangerous speed," he stressed, just weeks after the conclusion of the hottest year in human history. "Extinction and climate change are chewing up the web of life that ultimately supports virtually everything we know and love, and Trump's order will only accelerate the destruction."
"This executive order is a death warrant for polar bears, lesser prairie chickens, whooping cranes and so many more species on the brink of extinction," he added. "This unconscionable measure is completely out of step with most Americans, an overwhelming majority of whom support protecting species from extinction and preserving our natural heritage. We'll use every legal tool we can to ensure dangerous fossil fuel projects don’t drive species to extinction."
The president continues to pursue fossil fuel-friendly executive actions. On Tuesday, he signed multiple orders that aim to boost the coal industry—which Jason Rylander of CBD's Climate Law Institute said "take his worship of dirty fossil fuels to a gross and disturbingly reckless new level."
"Forcing old coal plants to keep spewing pollution into our air and water means more cancer, more asthma, and more premature deaths," Rylander noted. "This is yet another assault on efforts to preserve a livable climate, and it's now abundantly clear that Trump's promise to give America the cleanest air and water was a bold-faced lie."
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