Leader Schumer, Whitehouse Unveil Comprehensive New Report Exposing Corrupt Fossil Fuel Industry Control Over Trump Administration

As energy and electricity costs skyrocket, Americans are paying Trump’s debt to the fossil fuel industry

Bombshell investigation released as part of Leader Schumer’s Anti-Corruption Working Group

Washington, D.C. – Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and U.S. Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), Ranking Member of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works (EPW), today released a new report entitled, “The Billion Dollar Deal: How the Fossil Fuel Industry Bought the Trump Administration, Cashed In, and Left Americans to Pay the Price.”  The report traces massive fossil fuel and polluting industry donations to President Trump and Republican campaigns during the 2024 election cycle and demonstrates how the industries unlocked power over executive branch agencies in the form of personnel and policy decisions.

The bombshell investigation is part of Leader Schumer’s Anti-Corruption Working Group.

At an April 2024 Mar-a-Lago fundraiser, then-candidate Trump asked oil and gas executives to pledge $1 billion in campaign donations to return Trump to power, in exchange for tax breaks and a massive deregulation effort.  The fossil fuel industry delivered in the hundreds of millions, and the Trump Administration has delivered right back, installing hand-picked fossil fuel industry lackeys in key administration positions and handing polluters benefits worth hundreds of billions of dollars.  That bargain came at a price, and American families are the ones paying it in the form of higher energy bills and higher costs associated with increased damages from climate change.

“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 Leader 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.”

“The fossil fuel industry and their allies bought their way in to 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.  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,” said Ranking Member Whitehouse.  “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 the result of what Senate Democratic investigators have found over the course of 19 investigations into Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) regulatory rollbacks, 13 investigations into nine other agencies, and another 13 investigations into 88 separate polluters, backed by original analyses of campaign finance filings, corporate earnings, and investor communications.  The near-total refusal of the Trump Administration—and the fossil fuel administration that runs it—to cooperate with legitimate Congressional oversight complicated the investigations, but truth has a way of finding the light, and some corruption casts a shadow too unmistakable to conceal.

The new report makes the following key findings:

1. Trump ran for office to escape criminal accountability and enlisted Big Oil to win.  An original timeline of Trump’s legal jeopardy shows his Mar-a-Lago solicitation for $1 billion in fossil fuel money came only four days before his first criminal trial began.  Seven weeks later, Trump was convicted on 34 felony counts—the sentence for which he would never serve once he was successfully reelected.  Fossil fuel donors, meanwhile, would make an estimated $190 billion return on a $201 million investment in Trump’s reelection.

2. The fossil fuel industry donated substantially to Trump’s reelection effort.

• A new visualization of the top 11 fossil fuel donors to the Trump effort, from Harold Hamm to Tim Dunn, shows that those wealthy few gave over tens of millions to Trump’s reelection.
• The fossil fuel industry has out-contributed every other sector to Republican-aligned super PACs since 2021—more than six times the next largest, health care. 
• Over $19 million in fossil fuel dollars went to Trump’s inaugural fund. 

3. The return on investment has been extraordinary.

• 26 senior officials across EPA, the Department of Energy (DOE), and the Department of the Interior (DOI) previously worked for fossil fuel, chemical, or other polluting industries. 
• Trump weaponized his EPA, DOE, DOI, Department of Justice, Department of Defense, Department of State, and Securities and Exchange Commission on the fossil fuel industry’s behalf—from cancelling grants on false pretexts to military action to secure oil access to leasing swaths of public land to fossil fuels.  
• Trump attacks clean energy to take out fossil fuel’s competitors: The Trump Administration attacks fossil fuel’s competitors, especially wind and solar.  More than $1.8 billion in taxpayer funds have been paid to companies to cancel wind projects, and over 160 projects are frozen. 
• Enforcement under Trump II has collapsed: There have been 76% fewer DOJ civil environmental enforcement cases than in President Biden’s first year, and 81% fewer than during the first Trump Administration.

4. Americans are paying the bill.  Twice.  Higher energy costs.  The public health toll of unchecked pollution.  Rising disaster costs.  Homeowners’ insurance becoming unaffordable and unavailable.  Lost taxpayer revenue.  Clean energy jobs taking root abroad instead of here.  According to a new analysis by Senate investigators, fossil fuel companies paid more to shareholders in 2025 than the total direct damages from extreme weather in the United States. 

5. It’s not too late.  Congress can still act.  It can pass the DISCLOSE Act.  Pass the Big Oil Windfall Profits Tax Act.  Make polluters pay for emissions.  Empower lawsuits to hold polluters accountable.  And end subsidies for one of the most profitable industries on the planet. 

The report is available here. 

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