Early in his term, President Biden seemed to have struck an uneasy truce with the oil and gas industry.
Mr. Biden had imposed restrictions on drilling as part of his ambitious climate agenda, but he also approved an enormous $8 billion oil project in Alaska. The United States had become the world’s leading exporter of natural gas, and no other country in history was pumping more crude. The industry was enjoying record profits.
Then, in January, Mr. Biden paused new permits for export facilities for liquefied natural gas.
That decision galvanized oil and gas companies against Mr. Biden, according to industry lobbyists, and will be an undercurrent at a fund-raising lunch set for Wednesday in Houston. The luncheon, organized by three oil executives, will benefit former President Donald J. Trump, who is running to unseat Mr. Biden and is expected to attend, according to several people who have seen the invitation.
To the industry, Mr. Biden’s pause on new gas export permits “was a wake-up call,” said Thomas J. Pyle, president of the American Energy Alliance, which supports the fossil fuel industry. “He could be potentially icing billions of dollars in long-term L.N.G. contracts. That’s real. That’s tangible.”
One of the luncheon hosts is the billionaire Kelcy Lee Warren, who, as executive chairman of Energy Transfer, has built a national network of pipelines, including those serving L.N.G. export facilities. His Dallas-based company, which exports oil and gas products to about 50 countries, tangled with the Biden administration last year when it refused to extend a permit for a proposed export terminal that had run into delays. An indefinite pause on new permits complicates plans by Energy Transfer to continue an ambitious international expansion.
Another host, Harold G. Hamm, the executive chairman and founder of Continental Resources, is one of the pioneers of the shale oil boom that turned the United States into the world’s largest crude exporter. Also expected to join is Vicki Hollub, the chief executive of Occidental Petroleum, one of the top U.S. oil producers.
The private luncheon to benefit MAGA Inc., a pro-Trump super PAC, comes about a month after Mr. Trump hosted energy executives over dinner at Mar-a-Lago, his resort in Florida. He asked them to donate $1 billion to his campaign so that he could retake the White House and dismantle Mr. Biden’s climate regulations, including the pause on permits.
Mr. Trump’s campaign committee, which is separate from any super PAC, has raised $7.3 million from the oil and gas industry since the start of his 2024 campaign, according to data compiled by OpenSecrets, a nonpartisan nonprofit group that tracks campaign finance data. That amount is more than three times what the industry had poured into Mr. Trump’s campaign by this period in 2020, the organization found.
By contrast, the oil and gas industry has contributed about $186,000 to Mr. Biden’s campaign committee so far this cycle, according to OpenSecrets. Mr. Biden has signed a pledge to not accept contributions of more than $200 from any oil, gas or coal industry executive.
In pausing new permits, Mr. Biden said that he wanted the Energy Department to study the effects of gas exports on national security, the economy and climate change. The move followed a six-month campaign by climate activists to block what would have been the largest gas export terminal in the United States, a project in Louisiana known as known as Calcasieu Pass 2. Also affected by the pause were five other projects that applied to export gas to countries that do not have free-trade agreements with the United States. Even with the pause, the United States is still on track to nearly double its export capacity by 2027 because of projects already permitted and under construction.
Still, it was celebrated as a win by climate activists, an important constituency for the president, who especially needs to shore up support among young voters.
Nations must stop developing new oil and gas fields if global warming is to stay to relatively safe levels, according to the world’s leading energy organization, the International Energy Agency. Global emissions from the burning of oil, gas and coal are at a record high and are dangerously heating the planet. In December, the United States was among nearly 200 nations that agreed to transition away from fossil fuels. Mr. Biden has encouraged the rapid development of wind, solar and other nonpolluting energy sources.
Environmental groups from the Louisiana Gulf Coast, where pollution from liquefied natural gas facilities has affected the health of residents, want an outright ban on new exports.
“This L.N.G. pause is a huge deal for climate and environmental justice,” said Tiernan Sittenfeld,…
Read More: Biden and Big Oil Had a Truce. Now, It’s Collapsing.