Texas produces more CO2 emissions than any other state in America. Twice that of California. Triple that of states like Florida and Pennsylvania. And maybe that makes sense. Texas is the oil capital. We’re swimming in it. Shoot your shotgun off a few times in your backyard. It might come bubbling up, and you’re on the next wagon to Beverly Hills. Texas oil has made a lot of really rich men for well over a century.
So, when US Senate Democrats produce a report called “The Billion Dollar Deal: How the Fossil Fuel Industry Bought the Trump Administration, Cashed In, and Left Americans to Pay the Price,” you wonder:
How many Texas ties can I find?
How will the people be impacted?
The report came out on September 24, two weeks ago, but I just heard about it yesterday from a TikToker. Which is interesting, because I get a dozen emails a day from National Democrats asking for money. None of those emails mentioned this one. (I went back and looked.)
There was this press conference:
Outside of that, the Sierra Club and Climate Action Campaign released some statements, but mainstream media has otherwise been completely silent about this report.
This report is part of a larger Senate Democratic anti-corruption working group led by Leader Schumer and including Senators Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), Jeff Merkley (D-OR), Catherine Cortez Masto (D-NV), Alex Padilla (D-CA), and Andy Kim (D-NJ).
They’re focused on exposing all of Trump’s corruption, not just the ties to fossil fuels, but also including:
Pentagon Contracts
Crypto Ventures
The vanity projects
The foreign bribes
Schumer launched this initiative in July, 18 months into Trump’s second presidency.
Side note, before we get into this report. (Nuance.)
Except for Senator Merkley, all other Democrats in this “anti-corruption group,” including, and especially, Chuck Schumer, have a history of taking hundreds of thousands of dollars from AIPAC and the pro-Israel lobby.
And I want to be very clear on how I frame this, because this is about government corruption, Big Oil, the military-industrial complex, and climate change.
The last several years have fractured the Democratic Party over criticism of AIPAC regarding political corruption and campaign influence, centered on its substantial spending in US elections.
Taking AIPAC money is legal. So is almost everything Big Oil did in this report. That’s the problem.
Big Oil bought itself a government, and Texans are paying for it at the pump, on their power bills, and in the air we breathe. That story absolutely deserves to be told. We should know about that.
However, we have to see the hypocrisy of running an anti-corruption caucus with one hand while you cash checks with the other. The standard has to be the same for ExxonMobil and AIPAC.
One of the Big Oil donors Senate Democrats call out in their report is Paul Singer, an $8 million Trump donor running a hedge fund heavily invested in fossil fuels. He has also given $5.6 million to AIPAC-aligned super PACs since 2022.
So, while I praise Leader Schumer for producing such an important report, it’s hard to ignore that he’s working for the same donor class he claims to be calling out.
What does the report say?
It is 79 pages long, and if you get a chance to scroll through it, you should, but I’ll sum it up:
At an April 11, 2024, Mar-a-Lago dinner, Trump asked oil and gas executives for $1 billion in exchange for deregulation and tax breaks.
The report tallies about $201 million in traceable spending (direct donations, down-ballot giving, and issue ads), plus $19 million to the inaugural fund. Its own FEC analysis finds fossil-fuel-tied donors gave $410.5 million to the top ten Republican super PACs in 2023–24, more than six times the next sector.
A dozen-plus industry people were placed in the EPA, DOE, DOI, and DOJ.
The February 2026 rescission of the Endangerment Finding.
DOJ environmental enforcement down about 75%.
Email-requested pollution exemptions that the White House approved almost wholesale.
A sustained attack on wind and solar.
Higher power bills, about $580 billion in added fuel costs from killing tailpipe standards, health damages, and rising disaster and insurance costs.
The core of the argument is quid pro quo. The thing Trump is best known for. The first thing he was impeached for in his first term.
The Texas ties.
It’s oil. You knew we were going here.
Tim Dunn, who already owns dozens of far-right Republicans in the Texas government, gave about $5 million. The report quotes him at a 2023 America First Policy Institute event, saying he wants to be rid of the “CO2 as a pollutant” business. It frames the Endangerment Finding repeal as Trump obliging him.
Kelcey Warren, CEO of Energy Transfer, gave about $11 million to the campaign in Dallas. After the election, he and his company each gave another $12.5 million to MAGA Inc. His LNG project then got its permit extension.
Syed Javaid Anwar of Midland Energy, and longtime top donor to Greg Abbott, gave about $2 million.
A single fundraiser organized by Texas oil executives raised $40 million at $250,000 a ticket. At a Houston event, Trump joked about Harold Hamm being his “original oil guy.”
The inaugural donors (ExxonMobil, ConocoPhillips, Occidental, Chevron, and Hilcorp) are largely headquartered in Houston.
Valero (San Antonio) is part of the refiner swing from a $1.2 billion loss to a $2.1 billion profit.
Citgo got exemptions for refineries in Texas and elsewhere that recently violated the Clean Air Act.
TotalEnergies was paid $928 million to surrender offshore wind leases and committed to reinvest in Texas LNG.
About 30 GW of private-land wind projects are stalled at the Pentagon, concentrated in Texas and other red states.
CenterPoint is passing $1.6–1.8 billion in storm costs to 2.8 million Houston-area customers over fifteen years.
The report uses the Texas grid as its main evidence that renewables cut prices.
Ted Cruz co-sponsored legislation to give the industry immunity from climate liability.
Harris County is suing the EPA over the Solar for All termination, with Senator Whitehouse filing an amicus brief.
The report cites a Texas Tribune piece on oil donations to Rep. August Pfluger (TX11).
Why does it even matter?
Did you see recent footage in Napal of the flash flooding after a glacier collapse?
1,300 people died.
Burning oil, gas, and coal pumps carbon dioxide and methane into the air, trapping heat and warming the Gulf. It’s melting the glaciers, raising sea levels, and causing more extreme weather.
The July 4th flooding in Kerr County, which killed more than 130 people, including 37 children, was caused by climate change.
Winter Storm Uri, which killed hundreds of Texans, was caused by climate change.
In 2024, the Office of the Texas State Climatologist for Texas A&M updated its report on Future Trends of Extreme Weather in Texas.
It’s going to keep getting hotter. And not just “Texas hot.” Like, “hot, hot.”
Urban flooding (Dallas, Austin, and San Antonio) will become more common. I would argue that’s already happening, especially in Houston.
Bye-bye to the coast. And bye-bye to all the property values there, while we’re at it.
Between the droughts and the fires, the Smokehouse Creek Fire will get dwarfed, and water will increasingly become the emergency.
And I wonder if enough people grasp that all of these events will kill people. That’s the biggest danger. Maybe your loved one will die. Maybe you will. Maybe me.
But somewhere in Midland, Tim Dunn is still trying to get rid of the “CO2 as a pollutant” business.
Further reading:
Inside climate news: Many People Aren’t Connecting the Dots Between Climate Change and Extreme Weather
The fixes that the Senate Democrats propose.
At the end of their report, the Senate Democrats proposed five items, none of which I think are sufficient. But I guess it’s a start.
Pass the DISCLOSE Act, which would require dark money groups to name their donors. It’s just a band-aid, but we need to end Citizens United.
Tax Big Oil’s windfall profits. Fine, but why are prices spiking in the first place? And why are we still dependent on a system that kills millions of people every year?
Make polluters pay for their emissions.
Let people sue.
End fossil fuel subsidies.
Making them pay and taking away their money doesn’t build anything. That doesn’t build us a grid or train a workforce. Or protect people from losing their jobs. And their fixes didn’t address the dozen-plus industry people placed inside the EPA, DOE, DOI, and DOJ. Why not propose a ban for them?
It’s a good list, but it’s timid, and the fact that they’re proposing the DISCLOSE Act five weeks out from an election says a lot.
27 days left.
I’m not going to tell you that voting against Republicans will save the planet. You just watched six Senate Democrats hand you a timid list five weeks before an election, and most of them cash checks from the same donor class they’re calling out. Voting isn’t the finish line. It’s the floor.
But the other side is tearing up the floor.
The Republicans on your ballot have a plan. The Endangerment Finding is gone. Enforcement is down 75 percent. Refineries with Clean Air Act violations got exemptions by email.
Vote them out. Then hold the people you vote in to a higher standard than they hold themselves. Demand a Green New Deal. Demand they ban the revolving door. A Democratic Senate that passes the DISCLOSE Act is a start.
Texas oil made a lot of rich men. It’s time it stopped making our government.
Tim Dunn already voted. With his checkbook.
Your turn. Early voting runs October 19-30.
27 days until the November election!
First Day of Early Voting: October 19, 2026
Last Day to Apply for Ballot by Mail: October 23, 2026
Last Day of Early Voting: October 30, 2026
Election Day: November 3, 2026
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Thank you for reporting on the important report by the U.S. Senate Democrats, Michelle. Folx, ya gotta read this! And I'll ask again (like every freaking day): How/why does Trump get away with this shit???
Thank you, Michelle! Shared on bsky close to midnite.