Oil companies would save an estimated $110 billion in tax breaks if they accepted the "deal" allegedly offered by Donald Trump last month at a fundraising dinner at Mar-a-Lago.
The former president reportedly offered to reverse dozens of President Joe Biden's environmental policies and not allow new ones to be enacted in exchange for $1 billion in campaign donations, but an analysis shared with The Guardian showed tax breaks for the industry would be worth nearly 11,000 percent more than that amount.
“Big oil executives are sweating in their seats at the thought of losing $110 billion in special tax loopholes under Biden in 2025,” said Lukas Ross, of Friends of the Earth Action, which conducted the analysis. “If Trump promises to protect polluter handouts during tax negotiations, then his $1 billion shakedown is a cheap insurance policy for the industry."
Biden intends to eliminate long-standing initiatives to drill for oil and gas and other tax breaks, and a round of individual tax cuts are scheduled to expire next year that lobbyists from multiple oil companies have been pushing lawmakers to extend.
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More than 20 executives from Chevron, Exxon, Occidental Petroleum and other companies attended the Mar-a-Lago fundraiser, and sources at the event were reportedly stunned by Trump's offer, which has already prompted an investigation by congressional Democrats as an “offer of a blatant quid pro quo," and a watchdog group is examining whether the meeting warrants legal action.
The majority of the known attendees were from smaller firms that specialize in fracking, gas exporting and other subsections of the industry that are more threatened by regulations targeting individual parts of the fossil fuel economy.
“The oil majors … see their future in plastic [production]," said Kert Davies, director of special investigations at the Center for Climate Integrity. "That doesn’t apply to the smaller companies who don’t work across the industry. They’ve got nothing to shift to.”
