An oil pipeline stretches across the landscape outside Prudhoe Bay in North Slope Borough, Alaska on May 25, 2019.(Photo by Bonnie Jo Mount/The Washington Post via Getty Images)
Just over a week after a leading US Senate Democrat described President Donald Trump’s relationship with fossil fuel giants as “old-fashioned corruption, by a thuggish government and a desperate industry,” his administration on Thursday announced yet another giveaway to climate polluters who want to exploit the Arctic.
The US Department of the Interior is moving forward with a plan to allowoil and gas companies to conduct certain wintertime activities at the National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska without reviews generally required by the National Environmental Policy Act—a landmark law long targeted by Trump’s Republican Party.
“In issuing this categorical exclusion, this administration is seeking to fast-track large-scale oil drilling and seismic exploration without any further environmental analysis or public input,” warnedEarthjustice attorney Janet Bering. “It is cutting the public out of this decision and future decisions.”
“The administration finalized this new approach with zero public input,” Bering noted. “Combined with a similar proposal that rubber-stamps new oil production, this is a one-two punch. It’s bad policy, and it is unlawful.”
The 60-day public comment period is ongoing for the earlier proposal she cited, which is designed to streamline decision-making for construction and operation of oil and gas production sites in the same 23-million-acre Alaska reserve.
When the Interior Department unveiled that policy in early September, Earthjustice Attorney Erik Grafe declared that “what we’re seeing here is a concerted attack by the Trump administration to greenlight oil and gas drilling in the Western Arctic while ignoring the harm it will cause to these irreplaceable public lands and also the government’s obligation to protect these lands for wildlife and future generations.”
“These are large-scale, industrial activities that cause permanent damage to sensitive Arctic ecosystems, nearby communities, and the climate,” Grafe stressed. “The administration’s proposal flaunts basic environmental laws meant to protect land, wildlife, and people and allow for fully informed decision-making.”
Earthjustice is far from alone in blasting Trump’s recent attacks on the Arctic. Dan Ritzman, director of Sierra Club’s conservation campaign, condemned last month’s proposal as “another piece of the administration’s relentless effort to expand drilling across Alaska’s public lands.”
“The Western Arctic is home to caribou, migratory birds, and countless other wildlife, and decisions about its future deserve careful scrutiny—not a permitting process designed around the demands of the oil and gas industry,” Ritzman said at the time.
His colleague Mike Scott, Sierra Club’s national oil and gas campaign manager, was similarly critical of Thursday’s announcement.
“The Trump administration is handing Big Oil another free pass to exploit America’s public lands, this time by gutting environmental oversight in one of the most fragile ecosystems on the planet,” said Scott. “Oil companies have already shown the risks they pose to the Western Arctic, and now this administration wants to make it even easier for them to drill without scrutiny.”
“This isn’t about lowering energy costs or helping Alaskans,” he continued—as the president drives up fuel costs with an illegal war on Iran. “It’s about doing the fossil fuel industry’s bidding at the expense of wildlife, Alaska Native communities, and our public lands. The Trump administration is putting corporate profits ahead of people and the planet, and the Western Arctic will pay the price.”
Oil companies have already shown the risks they pose to the Western Arctic.
Now Trump wants to make it even easier for them to drill without scrutiny, threatening sensitive Arctic wildlife and the communities that depend on them.
Trump campaigned for a second term on a pledge to serve fossil fuel interests—even telling industry executives that he’d roll back climate policies if they poured $1 billion into his campaign. Last week, US Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and Committee on Environment and Public Works Ranking Member Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) released a report detailing how the president has delivered on that promise since returning to power last year.
“The fossil fuel industry and their allies bought their way into the Trump White House with hundreds of millions of dollars in political donations, after Trump promised fossil fuel bigwigs at a Mar-a-Lago fundraiser that he’d do anything and everything they wanted, for the right price,” Whitehouse said. “Now, their minions run the government from the inside, driving up energy bills to deliver payouts to the donors that put Trump back in office.”
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US Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) speak at a press conference on the fossil fuel industry’s connections to the Trump administration at the Capitol in Washington, DC on September 24, 2026. (Photo by Tasos Katopodis/Getty Images)
“Our new report exposes this old-fashioned corruption, by a thuggish government and a desperate industry, that is squeezing every last dollar out of Americans’ pocketbooks while they still can.”
While running for president in 2024, Donald Trumptoldoil and gas executives that he would pursue their policy priorities if the industry raised $1 billion for his campaign—and after returning to office last year, the Republican did just that, enriching those invested in fossil fuels, including himself, at the expense of the public and planet.
“The fossil fuel industry and their allies bought their way into the Trump White House with hundreds of millions of dollars in political donations, after Trump promised fossil fuel bigwigs at a Mar-a-Lago fundraiser that he’d do anything and everything they wanted, for the right price,” Whitehouse said in a statement.
“Now, their minions run the government from the inside, driving up energy bills to deliver payouts to the donors that put Trump back in office,” he continued. “Our new report exposes this old-fashioned corruption, by a thuggish government and a desperate industry, that is squeezing every last dollar out of Americans’ pocketbooks while they still can.”
The report is based on 19 investigations into Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) regulatory rollbacks, 13 probes of nine other agencies, and 13 investigations into 88 separate polluters. Investigators from Schumer’s Anti-Corruption Working Group examined campaign finance filings, corporate earnings, and investor communications.
The document details how, in the aftermath of Trump’s quid pro quo offer at the Mar-a-Lago fundraiser in 2024, fossil fuel executives, along with their corporate political action committees (PACs) and dark money groups, contributed an estimated $201 million to support Trump and allied Republican lawmakers—plus $19 million toward the inaugural fund.
“These figures capture only traceable donations,” the report emphasizes. “Other substantial sums flowed to candidate Trump through 501(c)(4) organizations that are not legally required to disclose their contributors. Dark money groups—nonprofits and shell companies that do not reveal their donors—contributed over $1.9 billion into the 2024 elections, up from $1 billion in 2020.”
The report names key figures from “the fossil fuel donor class” and includes their estimated contribution to Trump’s latest election:
Oil and banking heir Timothy Mellon: $151.5 million
Energy Transfer executive chair Kelcy Warren: $11 million
Elliott Management co-CEO Paul Singer: $8 million
CrownQuest Operating CEO Tim Dunn: $5 million
Continental Resources executive chair Harold Hamm: $4 million
Midland Energy founder and CEO Syed Javaid Anwar: $2 million
GeoSouthern Energy CEO George Bishop: $2 million
Alliance Resource Partners CEO Joseph Craft III: $2 million
Hilcorp Energy executive chair and founder Jeffery Hildebrand: $1.7 million
Sunoco board chari Ray Washburne: $611,000
There’s also former Liberty Energy CEO Chris Wright, who is now Trump’s energy secretary and gave an estimated $795,000. According to the report, “Lobbyists say that many CEOs now keep Secretary Wright’s personal phone number on speed dial.”
Wright is among at least a dozen former oil executives and lobbyists Trump installed at the EPA and departments of Energy, the Interior, and Justice to systematically dismantle “the regulatory architecture built over decades to protect American families from pollution and climate change,” the publication points out. “Those captured agencies delivered for the fossil fuel industry.”
The report calls out not only Wright but also Trump’s other “polluter worker bees,” including EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin, Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, and various other officials at their agencies who have ties to polluting industries.
It also calls out the GOP-controlled Congress, which last year sent to Trump’s desk the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, a law that includes “tens of billions in new and expanded direct subsidies to fossil fuel companies through tax breaks, royalty cuts, a suspension of the charge on methane pollution, and other giveaways. Combined with the subsidies already on the books, independent analysts estimate the industry will collect some $190 billion in tax breaks and subsidies over the next 10 years.”
“The costs of these gifts to the fossil fuel industry fall on everyone else,” the report stresses. “Climate-related disasters cost the United States at least $115 billion in direct damages in 2025 alone. Each year, the damages to public health from fossil fuel air pollution run at about $820 billion, or $2,500 per American, and contribute to approximately 91,000 premature deaths and 216,000 new cases of childhood asthma. Homeowners’ insurance has become unaffordable or unavailable across many parts of the country. These are just some of the existing costs associated with fossil fuel production and combustion.”
“The Trump administration’s regulatory rollbacks will drive them higher, as air and water pollution as well as climate change will all get worse,” the document warns, as the fossil fuel-driven climate emergencyworsens, with deadly consequences worldwide.
The report notes that “canceled and delayed wind and solar projects are also raising electricity prices for consumers in multiple states, sending billions to fossil fuel plants. And the EPA itself has estimated that the elimination of tailpipe emission standards will cost Americans a minimum of $580 billion in added fuel costs alone over the next three decades. Hundreds of thousands of jobs are being lost as the United States cedes its industrial competitiveness in clean energy technologies to China and Europe.”
Trump also partnered with Israel to launch an illegal war on Iran—which has responded by restricting ship traffic through the the Strait of Hormuz, sending global fuel prices soaring. The publication highlights that “the 100 biggest oil and gas companies collectively earned an extra $30 million per hour in the first month of the Iran conflict alone—amounting to $23 billion in windfall profits—with $234 billion projected by year’s end if oil prices remain near $100 a barrel.”
“As the Trump administration’s war in Iran drives up gas prices—with analysts warning crude prices could reach $200—American consumers pay directly for the chaos that Big Oil’s political investments helped purchase,” the report warns. Brown University’s Costs of War Project estimates the higher diesel and gasoline prices have so far cost Americans $115.7 billion, or $883 per household.
Trump’s war is also filling his own pockets. CNBC estimated earlier this month that the president has made up to $4.4 million from his investments in fossil fuel companies—and as Common Dreams reported earlier this week, he continues to make related trades.
“Donald Trump will always choose self-enrichment over helping American families, and as this report reveals, his fossil fuel corruption is costing Americans billions,” said Schumer. “Instead of using the presidency to address the affordability crisis, lower costs, and protect Americans’ health and safety, Trump has used his power to deliver for his billionaire buddies in the fossil fuel industry. The message from this administration is clear: Big Oil gets the profits, and American families get the bill.”
Released less than six weeks away from the midterm elections, Senate Democrats’ report not only lays out a range of issues, but offers some fixes, including demands to tax the windfall profits of Big Oil, as well as legislation that would “shine a light behind the dark money front groups and shell organizations that fossil fuel interests use to hide their spending.”
The report also calls for making polluters pay for planet-heating emissions and empowering lawsuits to hold them accountable. It further advocates for ending fossil fuel subsidies and directing that money to clean energy, consumer relief, and infrastructure resilience.
“The Trump administration is pumping public money into the fossil fuel industry and stripping public protections to pad the profits of some of the wealthiest corporations in the nation,” David Arkush, director of Public Citizen’s Climate Program, said in response to the report. “The campaign contributions to Donald Trump by Big Oil have paid dividends and have allowed the fossil fuel industry to continue to pollute our communities.”
“This administration has ceded our nation’s clean energy future to dirty energy and is doing its best to sacrifice the economy, public health, and the environment to Big Oil’s profits,” he added. “Every American family struggling with high costs is suffering because of the corrupt relationship between Donald Trump and the fossil fuel industry.”
Climate science denier Donald Trump confirms that he knows nothing about democracy and that more liquid gold is being secured according to his policy of global privateering.Orcas discuss Donald Trump and the killer apes’ concept of democracy. Front Orca warns that Trump is crashing his country’s economy and that everything he does he does for the fantastically wealthy.
