Big oil spent a stunning $445m throughout the last election cycle to influence Donald Trump and Congress, a new analysis has found.
That figure includes funding from January 2023 and November 2024 for political donations, lobbying and advertising to support elected officials and specific policies. Because it does not include money funneled through dark-money groups – which do not have to reveal their donors – it is almost certainly a vast understatement, says the report from green advocacy group Climate Power, which is based on campaign finance disclosures and advertising industry data.
Fossil fuel interests poured $96m into Donald Trump’s re-election campaign and affiliated political action committees, the report found. Much of that was covered by megadonor oil billionaires, such as the fracking magnate Harold Hamm, the pipeline mogul Kelcy Warren and the drilling tycoon Jeffery Hildebrand.
Additional contributions came from lesser-known oil and gas interests, including fossil fuel-trading hedge funds, mining corporations and the producers of offshore-drilling ships and fuel tanks.
Fossil fuel companies and their trade groups spent another $243m lobbying Congress. Those donors stand to profit from priorities set by Senate-confirmed Trump cabinet appointees, such Chris Wright, the fracking CEO who was tapped to head the Department of Energy, and Lee Zeldin, the former New York representative who has accepted more than $400,000 in fossil fuel-tied campaign donations and who will lead the Environmental Protection Agency.
Big oil also spent some $80m on advertising to support their interests. That includes funding for ad campaigns run in swing states, such as one from the refining lobbying organization American Fuel & Petrochemical Manufacturers, which railed against Joe Biden’s pro-electric vehicle policies, or another eight-figure ad blitz from top US oil lobbying group the American Petroleum Institute that promoted the idea that fossil fuels are “vital” to global energy security. Neither campaign directly endorsed Trump, but both targeted audiences in swing states.
Additionally, oil and gas companies and trade groups spent more than $25m on Republican down-ballot races, including $16m on House races, $8m on Senate fights and more than $500,000 on GOP gubernatorial candidates.
These investments are “likely to pay dividends”, the report says, with Republicans holding control of the White House, House and Senate – as well as some key states. Trump unleashed dozens of pro-fossil fuel executive actions on his first day in office and is expected to pursue a vast array of others with cooperation from Congress.
It’s a sign the US must “free ourselves from Big Oil’s grip and invest in the clean energy of the future”, the Climate Power report says.
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Trump campaigned on a promise to “drill, baby, drill”, remove limits on the already booming fossil fuel industry and reverse Biden’s climate policies.
“We have something that no other manufacturing nation will ever have, the largest amount of oil and gas of any country on Earth, and we are going to use it,” Trump said in his inaugural address on Monday. “We will be a rich nation again, and it is that liquid gold under our feet that will help to do it.”
