Photo: The party Big Oil paid for, in Ohio. Whoisjohngalt, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons
The Senate narrowly passed the Republicans’ mega-bill on Tuesday, with a tie-breaking vote from vice president J.D. Vance. The bill is uniquely unpopular, with nearly two-thirds of the American public against it thanks to sweeping cuts to Medicare, the Affordable Care Act, food assistance programs, veterans’ benefits, education programs, clean energy projects, and environmental regulations, and expansion of tax credits for the wealthy and subsidies for the industries that have most supported President Trump.
Meanwhile, data shared with Drilled from Global Witness documents that in addition to the hundreds of millions they donated to the Trump campaign, fossil fuel donors provided at least $19 million towards his inauguration fund, to celebrate the Big Oil President. Presidential inaugural funds are used to cover the costs of inauguration events, such as parades, galas and receptions. Donald Trump was sued by the D.C. attorney general for misuse of those funds during his 2017 inauguration, when he used them to throw a party at his own hotel.
Chevron was the top fossil fuel donor to the fund, throwing in $2 million, with ExxonMobil, ConocoPhillips and Occidental Petroleum each contributing $1 million. When asked about the donation, a Chevron spokesperson said, “Chevron has a long tradition of celebrating democracy by supporting the inaugural committees of both parties” and that they were “proud to have done so again this year.”
The final text of the budget reconciliation bill includes changes requested by a handful of Republican senators who were on the fence about it, particularly Alaskan senator Lisa Murkowski who was opposed to the inclusion of an excise tax that had been proposed for renewable energy projects. While that tax has been removed, it still eliminates the Energy Efficient Home Improvement Credit (25C), Residential Clean Energy Credit (25D), and New Energy Efficient Home Credit (45L) by the end of the year. Ari Matusiak, CEO and founder of Rewiring America, described the bill as a “senseless energy price hike for American families.”
“Eliminating the home energy credits means fewer households can afford heat pumps, rooftop solar, or insulation — proven upgrades that cut bills and ease pressure on the grid,” he said.
“The bill is still devastating for the clean energy transition,” Gretchen Goldman, president of the Union of Concerned Scientists, said. “It would spike energy costs, threaten energy reliability, and strand hundreds of billions of dollars in clean energy and transportation investments along with the tens of thousands of domestic jobs that come with them.”
Meanwhile, the bill puts the government’s thumb on the scale in a big way for the fossil fuel industry. New analysis from United to End Polluter Handouts, a consortium of environmental nonprofits including Friends of the Earth and Food and Water Watch, shows the bill includes nearly $18 billion in new giveaways to the fossil fuel industry over the next ten years. That’s on top of the $170 billion in taxpayer-funded subsidies the industry is already set to receive over the next decade.
“This is the largest-ever transfer of wealth from working-class people to the wealthy,” Collin Rees, with Oil Change International, said. “It strips healthcare from 17 million people, forces kids go to school hungry, allows corporations to further pollute our air and water, destroys thousands of clean energy jobs, and puts us all at greater risk from climate disasters — all to pay for tax cuts for billionaires and handouts to the Big Oil CEOs who bought access to Trump.”
According to the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, a nonpartisan, non-profit organization committed to educating the public on issues with significant fiscal policy impact, the Senate budget bill would add $4 trillion to the U.S. deficit through 2034, $1 trillion more than the version of the bill that passed the House earlier this year. “The bill also relies on a number of arbitrary expirations,” the group noted in a statement about the bill. “If made permanent, it would add $5.4 trillion to the debt. The Senate also employed a ‘current policy’ gimmick to mask most of its borrowing and avoid the ‘Byrd rule’ against adding to long-term borrowing.”
“The level of blatant disregard we just witnessed for our nation’s fiscal condition and budget process is a failure of responsible governing,” Maya MacGuineas, president of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, said. “These are the very same lawmakers who for years have bemoaned the nation’s massive debt, voting to put another $4 trillion on the credit card.”
The bill now heads back to the House, which has to approve the changes introduced by the Senate. It is expected to pass easily there, with the goal of putting it on President Trump’s desk to sign on the 4th of July, American Independence Day.
