The billionaire oil tycoon’s fingerprints are all over Trump’s high-speed push to crush environmental regulation and renewables.
By Emily Atkin, Heated
At a dinner for Big Oil executives last year, Donald Trump promised to give the fossil fuel industry essentially anything it wanted in exchange for $1 billion toward his re-election effort. The dinner was organized by Harold Hamm.
The fossil fuel industry went on to donate $96 million directly to Trump’s campaign; spend $80 million on political advertising; and pour God-knows-how-much cash into dark money groups that don’t have to reveal their donors. Most of the fundraisers were organized by Harold Hamm.
After the election, Trump quickly nominated North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum to lead the Department of Interior, which oversees fossil fuel and renewable development on federal lands and waters. Burgum is close personal friends with Harold Hamm.
Trump went on to nominate fracking executive and climate denier Chris Wright to lead the Department of Energy, which oversees energy policy and research. Wright was hand-selected for the position by Harold Hamm.
While most national media has be understandably fixated on Elon Musk’s takeover of the federal bureaucracy, another billionaire’s influence on the Trump administration has slid by largely unnoticed. Hamm, the founder and executive chairman of fracking company Continental Resources, has been instrumental in driving Trump’s full-speed campaign to deregulate the fossil fuel industry and crush its main competition: renewables.
Recent Posts
The Ancient History Of Socialism In North America
Take Action Now There was nothing simplistic about moving — in many ways back to earlier traditions — to a system of governance not…
New Mexico Is Providing Free Childcare For All. It’s Time For Others To Do The Same
Take Action Now The state is setting a powerful example with its first-in-the-nation plan. But the policy has support across the USBy Katrina…
Nobel Peace Prize Winner Supports Israel’s Genocide & Trump’s War On Venezuela
Take Action Now Nobel Peace Prize laureate María Corina Machado is a far-right Venezuelan coup-plotter funded by the US government. She supports…
Israeli Historian Ilan Pappé: Despite Ceasefire, Palestinians Still Face “Elimination, Genocide”
Take Action Now “I hope that the world will not be misled that Israel is now ready to open a different kind of page in its relationship with…