Trump suggests to oil donors that he will speed up merger deals

Trump expressed dismay that the federal government was probing her phone for information and said his administration would treat her differently if he won the presidency, according to people familiar with the matter who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to comment publicly.

– Can you wait a few months? he said, according to these people.

Trump’s previously unpublished remarks indicated that he may be trying to influence the FTC, an independent agency, on behalf of his supporters. They come as the oil and gas industry is in the midst of multibillion-dollar mergers that have sparked calls from Democrats for tight government control.

Trump has made a concerted effort to woo oil and gas CEOs, asking top executives to donate $1 billion to his 2024 campaign at an April dinner as first reported by The Washington Post at his Mar-a-Lago club. During the event, he promised to repeal dozens of President Biden’s environmental regulations politics.

Democrats in Congress have called on the FTC and Justice Department to investigate the recent wave of mergers in the oil and gas industry, suggesting they have raised energy costs for American families and businesses. Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer (N.Y.) and 22 other Democratic senators sent a letter Thursday calling on the Justice Department to “use every tool at its disposal to prevent and prosecute alleged price fixing in the oil industry.” .

Earlier this month, the FTC alleged that Scott Sheffield, former CEO of Pioneer Natural Resources, worked with a coalition of oil-producing countries led by Saudi Arabia and Russia to artificially raise oil prices. Sheffield denied the allegations and accused the government of “smearing” him without evidence.

At the fundraiser in Houston, Trump also gave a speech in which he promised to immediately approve oil pipelines and expand oil drilling in his second term, The Post reported.

A representative for Trump’s super PAC declined to comment on the former president’s interactions with Hollub. Karoline Leavitt, a spokeswoman for the Trump campaign, declined to comment on the Super PAC event, but said Trump “is supported by people who share his vision of energy dominance to protect our national security and lower the cost of living for all Americans.” “

Occidental spokesman Eric Moses did not comment directly on the interaction with Trump. “We believe our transaction with CrownRock is good for consumers and America’s energy security. We have been working productively with the FTC in responding to its requests for information and expect to complete the transaction in the third quarter,” Moses said.

People familiar with the matter said Hollub did not directly ask Trump for help and appeared to chuckle as he made the promise.

If approved, the CrownRock acquisition would make Occidental a bigger player in the U.S. shale market than Chevron and Hess combined. The deal will increase Occidental’s production in the Permian Basin – a major oil field covering western Texas and southeastern New Mexico – by 170,000 barrels of oil and gas per day. The FTC sought to determine whether the merger violated antitrust laws.

“Some of our teams felt like (the FTC) had asked for everything,” Hollub told analysts on a call to discuss the company’s 2023 financial results, Reuters reported.

Occidental’s acquisition of CrownRock is just one of several recent mergers in the oil and gas industry. On Wednesday, ConocoPhillips announced it would acquire Marathon Oil in an all-stock deal valued at $22.5 billion. On Tuesday, Hess shareholders approved a $53 billion merger with Chevron, another deal requiring a potentially lengthy regulatory review.

If all pending deals are approved, just six companies will control two-thirds of the remaining commercial oil resources in the Permian Basin, according to research firm Rystad Energy.

“This is a new era of the shale industry. We called it Shale 4.0,” said Matthew Bernstein, senior analyst and shale analytics manager at Rystad Energy. “There may have been a greater degree of FTC scrutiny given the pace and size of these transactions.”

The FTC has long held the principle that it should be a neutral arbiter, indifferent to whether a particular company or industry is favored by the current president. Its primary mission is to prevent business practices that are anti-competitive, deceptive or unfair to consumers. Although five commissioners are appointed by the president, no more than three can be from the same party.

Conservatives are increasingly angry at what they see as an overly aggressive FTC, especially when it comes to oil deals. In addition to investigating Occidental’s acquisition of CrownRock, the FTC requested additional information about ExxonMobil’s operations the agreement to purchase Pioneer Natural Resources and the planned merger of Chevron with Hess.

Hollub was one of several co-hosts of the fundraiser at a luxury Houston hotel, and the interaction took place during a private roundtable with top donors that preceded Trump’s speech. Trump campaign officials said that in total, the event raised more than $15 million. Other organizers included Harold Hamm, executive chairman of the oil giant Continental Resources and Kelcy Warren, billionaire chairman and CEO of Energy Transfer Partners.

Before participants entered the smaller room, their phones were taken away. A few other elected officials also attended the event, but they were mostly oil executives, according to people with knowledge of the matter.

According to people briefed on the event, top donors were able to talk to Trump about anything that was bothering them at the roundtable.

Many donors have complained about the Biden administration’s policies, and Trump has vowed to change some of them. For example, he promised to rescind California’s exemption under the Clean Air Act, which allows the state to set stricter emissions limits for passenger cars than those set by the federal government.

Other states adopted California’s emissions regulations, prompting Detroit to develop and sell more electric and hybrid vehicles, reducing demand for gasoline. The Environmental Protection Agency repealed the waiver during Trump’s first term, but the Biden administration restored it and last month a federal court upheld it.

Trump also promised to shift the focus of the International Energy Agency, the world’s top energy regulator, from fighting climate change to increasing the use of fossil fuels. The IEA has focused more on clean energy in recent years, angering top oil producers and clashing with Trump’s “drill, baby, drill” philosophy. The United States provides about a quarter of the IEA’s funding, and Trump could push to replace its director Fatih Birol with someone more sympathetic to fossil fuel interests.

Donors found Trump particularly favorable to their agenda, according to four people briefed at the roundtable. Climate advocates, meanwhile, have argued that the planet cannot afford another four years of Trump’s rollbacks and environmental policies, and have reacted sharply to the latest revelations.

“It’s disgusting, it’s appalling, and it’s not just appalling, it’s not surprising,” said Tiernan Sittenfeld, senior vice president of government affairs at the League of Conservation Voters. “Trump showed us who he was when he was president; “He was by far the worst president when it comes to climate, clean energy and environmental justice.”

Trump’s comments at the Houston fundraiser likely did not violate campaign finance laws, said Brendan Fischer, a campaign finance lawyer. In 2016, the Supreme Court overturned the public corruption conviction of former Virginia Governor Robert F. McDonnell. The court’s ruling effectively made it more difficult to prove “quid pro quo” in corruption cases by requiring prosecutors to show that campaign contributions had a direct impact on specific government actions, Fischer said.

In the wake of the McDonnell decision, “the open question is how far politicians can go in making promises to donors and potential donors,” he said.

Fischer said Trump will have a “fair argument” that he is not promising anything specific in return for campaign contributions, but instead outlining how the FTC will operate differently under his administration.

“Trump takes the transactional nature of fundraising to another level,” he said.