In 2015, the Oklahoma oil magnate Harold Hamm received a glimpse of the long run and didn’t like what he noticed. Renewable vitality, he realized, was a risk to the long-term dominance of oil and pure gasoline.
On the time, Oklahoma was dealing with a funds disaster and lawmakers wished to extend taxes on oil and gasoline. To guard a profitable tax break for his firm, Continental Assets, Mr. Hamm waged a brutal marketing campaign towards the wind trade to persuade lawmakers and the general public that the tax breaks it acquired have been the true drawback.
In a 2016 commentary, he known as the wind trade “parasitic” and a “drain on state coffers.” A coalition he helped create ran an advert marketing campaign wherein the previous College of Oklahoma soccer coach Barry Switzer accused wind generators of “blowing a gap in our state’s funds.” Nevermind that Oklahoma spent roughly 4 instances as a lot on tax breaks for the state’s oil-and-gas trade. Ultimately, Mr. Hamm prevailed, and lawmakers stored the oil tax at a low 2 p.c for the primary couple of years of latest manufacturing, whereas eliminating two tax breaks for wind-energy builders.
Within the years since, the USA has skilled an vitality renaissance. Oil manufacturing is approach up, and so is the manufacturing of pure gasoline, which we now export around the globe. On the similar time, the nation has constructed a considerable wind trade and is within the early years of a outstanding solar energy increase. A new nuclear energy plant powered on in 2023, one thing that hadn’t occurred in the USA for the reason that Eighties.
This diversification has been nice for the nation: America’s energy vegetation emit loads much less carbon dioxide, sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxide for each megawatt generated than earlier than, and we’ve lowered our dependence on overseas vitality provides. And it’s been achieved with out pushing up vitality prices.
But for the 79-year-old Mr. Hamm, whose privately held firm is the Thirteenth-largest oil producer in the USA, in accordance with the consulting agency Wooden Mackenzie, with $2 billion in income final yr, a extra aggressive market is threatening and ideologically abhorrent. He has taken his struggle towards renewables nationwide — and made a undertaking out of influencing President Trump.
Mr. Hamm’s allies now maintain key posts within the administration; amongst them is Vitality Secretary Chris Wright, who delivered an uncompromising protection of fossil fuels in a current speech in Houston. Collectively, they’re shaping a coverage of fossil fuels above all else that may profit Mr. Hamm and different home oil producers. It could additionally steer the nation away from the trail that has made the USA extra vitality safe with out driving up prices.
Mr. Hamm, who didn’t reply to requests for an interview, has seen his relationship with the brand new president develop cozier over time. At their first enterprise assembly in Trump Tower in 2012, Mr. Hamm informed Mr. Trump about how new drilling methods would improve U.S. oil manufacturing. Mr. Trump famous that the oilman was and not using a tie, so he took him to the reward store within the foyer and supplied him some with the Trump model.
A few years later, when Mr. Hamm was photographed for a journal cowl, he wore a royal blue Trump tie. If the selection of neckwear was meant as a code, the message was acquired. Mr. Trump despatched Mr. Hamm a letter complimenting him on his sartorial selection. He enclosed extra ties.
In these days, Mr. Trump was comparatively unschooled on vitality issues, and Mr. Hamm might have begun passing alongside his perception that nationalism and petroleum go hand in hand. In a 2022 interview, he described himself as “an oilocrat, and likewise I’m a patriot.”
In 2016, Mr. Hamm was one of many first chief executives to endorse Mr. Trump’s presidential candidacy, although he mentioned he turned down a proposal to turn out to be vitality secretary. When Mr. Trump’s marketing campaign to return to workplace was underway in 2023, Mr. Hamm’s assist wavered, and he backed Ron DeSantis after which Nikki Haley throughout the major race. However after they dropped out, the vitality government returned to Mr. Trump’s crew with renewed conviction.
Mr. Hamm organized an “vitality spherical desk” for Mr. Trump at Mar-a-Lago final April with about 20 vitality chief executives. At that assembly, Mr. Trump bluntly requested for $1 billion in donations from the oil trade and promised to roll again rules. The trade didn’t meet that lofty aim, however it was a significant monetary backer of Mr. Trump’s marketing campaign. Mr. Hamm did his share, giving greater than $4 million to political motion committees supporting Mr. Trump.
On the similar Mar-a-Lago assembly, Mr. Hamm launched Mr. Trump to his buddy Mr. Wright, the chief government of an oil-and-gas fracking agency, Liberty Vitality. The brand new head of the Inside Division is the previous North Dakota governor Doug Burgum, whom Mr. Hamm has additionally identified for years by means of Continental’s oil operations within the state.
Mr. Hamm just lately described the 2 cupboard secretaries as a “dream crew of unimaginable proportions.” He hosted a lavish inauguration get together at which oil-and-gas trade corporations and lobbying teams celebrated their shut ties to the brand new administration.
Talking at a significant oil trade convention in Houston, Mr. Wright echoed concepts from Mr. Hamm’s 2023 guide, “Sport Changer.” Mr. Hamm wrote that fossil fuels “are the rationale we now have a contemporary world, lifting billions out of poverty.”
In his personal rousing protection of fossil fuels, Mr. Wright known as local weather change a mere “facet impact” of constructing a contemporary world with longer life expectancy and “lifting virtually the entire world’s residents out of grinding poverty.” He additionally attacked renewables. “In every single place wind and photo voltaic penetration have elevated considerably, costs on the grid went up and stability of the grid went down,” he mentioned.
Whereas it’s true that some states’ grids have struggled, Texas’ largely has not. Renewable penetration there has grown steadily, topping 30 p.c all through 2024. Costs have been flat just lately and fell in 2024 as extra solar energy and batteries helped cut back summertime worth spikes. The day of Mr. Wright’s speech in Houston, as a lot as 67 p.c of the electrical energy maintaining the lights on in Texas got here from photo voltaic and wind farms.
For Mr. Hamm, vitality poverty is private. He was the youngest of 13 youngsters born to sharecroppers in central Oklahoma who relied on kerosene lamps for mild and blocks of ice for refrigeration till an electrical line was strung to his household’s home. He began his profession as an oil subject truck driver, cleansing the sludge out of tanks earlier than occurring to construct a multibillion-dollar petroleum empire.
He’s proper that fossil fuels have given us air-conditioning, plastics and airplanes, however they’re additionally answerable for fueling stronger warmth waves and deadlier fires . The vexing query is tips on how to steadiness responding to local weather change with powering the financial system within the coming years. Mr. Hamm’s reply appears to be a return to the vitality system we had 20 years in the past, wherein wind and photo voltaic vitality have been insignificant, and pure gasoline was changing into dominant, alongside nuclear.
Pursuing the outdated methods wouldn’t solely speed up world warming but in addition undermine the vitality increase unleashed by renewable vitality and fashionable fracking methods. And for what? We’re not in an vitality disaster.
The share of American family budgets used to pay for electrical energy, heating and gasoline is at one of many lowest factors in a era. We’re breaking vitality manufacturing information with each passing month. And our greenhouse gasoline emissions are down about 18 p.c since 2005, although this development might reverse if new Trump administration insurance policies sluggish or cease improvement of wind and photo voltaic farms. Mr. Hamm’s hard-line, pro-fossil-fuel place would reverse these adjustments and lift costs.
Vitality is just too vital to upset the apple cart. Each enterprise and each family is determined by it. So does our nationwide safety, and our competitiveness. Shutting down photo voltaic and batteries, the fastest-growing components of our energy grids, solely dangers the long run.
Russell Gold is a distinguished author at Texas Month-to-month and the creator of “Superpower: One Man’s Quest to Remodel American Vitality.”
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