President Joe Biden has framed his rematch against Donald Trump as a referendum on democracy and abortion rights. But November is not just about “freedom.” It is also a “climate” election, as a number of Biden environmental initiatives hinge on the outcome at an absolutely critical juncture for the planet.
As the Washington Post reported Thursday, Trump has promised oil executives that he’ll immediately tear down Biden’s green policies if elected again, prevent others from being enacted, and rip up regulations on drilling—all in exchange for a billion dollars of campaign contributions. “You’ve been waiting on a permit for five years,” the former president told the CEOS at a Mar-a-Lago event last month, as an attendee recounted to the Post. “You’ll get it on Day One.”
In addition to his promise to ramp up drilling, Trump also said he would undo the Biden administration’s “ridiculous” electric vehicles initiatives, among other clean energy policies. While some oil executives seem to question Trump’s ability to effectively do their bidding—especially with much of his attention focused on beating the felony charges he’s facing in his Manhattan hush money trial—the industry has already been drafting executive orders to lower drilling costs and boost offshore leases that Trump would be able to approve immediately after retaking office, as Politico reported this week. “We’re going to have to write exactly what we want, actually spoon feeding the administration,” as one energy company lawyer involved in an executive order on gas exports told the outlet.
“It’s going to be like shooting fish in the barrel,” Stephen Brown, director of the energy consulting firm RBJ Strategies, added of Biden’s regulations. “There’s just so much to go after.”
Trump’s promises to big oil underscore the degree to which his second administration would be a disaster for the environment: In his first term, Trump rolled back more than a hundred climate initiatives by predecessor Barack Obama, including a U.S. withdrawal from the Paris Agreement. He has made clear, both in private and in public, that he would pick up where he left off if he returns to power—by being a “dictator” for the first day of his presidency. “We’re drilling, drilling, drilling,” Trump said in December, fantasizing about how he’d use his unchecked power. “After that, I’m not a dictator.”
By contrast, Biden’s climate record—imperfect as it may be—features the most significant climate bill in U.S. history: the Inflation Reduction Act, which he maneuvered through divided Washington in 2022. “It is not all that we wanted,” progressive Senator Ed Markey said at the time. “But it was what we need to begin this effort to lead the rest of the world.” The future of that package—which is already paying off—and other elements of Biden’s ambitious climate agenda hang in the balance this fall. “Despite the overwhelming devastation in red and blue states, there are still those who deny the climate is in crisis,” Biden said in remarks commemorating Earth Day last month. “Anyone in or out of government who willfully denies the impacts of climate change is condemning the American people to a very dangerous future.”
That dangerous future is, in many ways, already here—and experts warn that far more “drastic” action will be needed to ward off even more catastrophic climate change. A Trump win in November wouldn’t only prevent the “maximum ambition” United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres called for at COP28 last year. It would take U.S. policy in the opposite direction. “Donald Trump is selling out working families to Big Oil for campaign checks,” as Biden campaign spokesperson Ammar Moussa put it to the Post Thursday. “It’s that simple.”
More Great Stories From Vanity Fair
Cover Star Chris Hemsworth on Fear, Love, and Escaping Hollywood
Everything to Know About the Worm That Allegedly Crawled Inside RFK Jr.’s Brain and Died
See Every Look From the 2024 Met Gala Red Carpet
Meet the Mastermind Behind New York’s Celebrity Playground of Choice
The Vatican’s Secret Role in the Science of IVF
Griffin Dunne on the Tragic Death That Reshaped His Family
Visit the VF Shop and Get Our Brand-New Tote (and Much More)
The post Why Big Oil Executives Are Already Salivating Over a Second Trump Term appeared first on Vanity Fair.