In 2015, the Oklahoma oil magnate Harold Hamm received a glimpse of the longer term and didn’t like what he noticed. Renewable power, he realized, was a risk to the long-term dominance of oil and pure gasoline.
On the time, Oklahoma was going through a price range disaster and lawmakers needed to extend taxes on oil and gasoline. To guard a profitable tax break for his firm, Continental Assets, Mr. Hamm waged a brutal campaign in opposition to the wind trade to persuade lawmakers and the general public that the tax breaks it acquired had been the actual downside.
In a 2016 commentary, he referred to 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 price range.” Nevermind that Oklahoma spent roughly 4 instances as a lot on tax breaks for the state’s oil-and-gas trade. In the long run, Mr. Hamm prevailed, and lawmakers stored the oil tax at a low 2 p.c for the primary couple of years of recent manufacturing, whereas eliminating two tax breaks for wind-energy builders.
Within the years since, the USA has skilled an power renaissance. Oil manufacturing is method up, and so is the manufacturing of pure gasoline, which we now export world wide. On the similar time, the nation has constructed a considerable wind trade and is within the early years of a exceptional solar energy increase. A new nuclear power 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 crops emit lots much less carbon dioxide, sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxide for each megawatt generated than earlier than, and we’ve diminished our dependence on international power provides. And it’s been completed with out pushing up power prices.
But for the 79-year-old Mr. Hamm, whose privately held firm is the Thirteenth-largest oil producer in the USA, in keeping with the consulting agency Wooden Mackenzie, with $2 billion in income final 12 months, a extra aggressive market is threatening and ideologically abhorrent. He has taken his struggle in opposition to 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 recent speech in Houston. Collectively, they’re shaping a coverage of fossil fuels above all else that will profit Mr. Hamm and different home oil producers. It will additionally steer the nation away from the trail that has made the USA extra power 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 through the years. At their first enterprise assembly in Trump Tower in 2012, Mr. Hamm informed Mr. Trump about how new drilling strategies would improve U.S. oil manufacturing. Mr. Trump famous that the oilman was with no tie, so he took him to the present store within the foyer and supplied him some with the Trump model.
A few years later, when Mr. Hamm was photographed for a magazine cowl, he wore a royal blue Trump tie. If the selection of neckwear was supposed 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 power issues, and Mr. Hamm could 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 in addition I’m a patriot.”
In 2016, Mr. Hamm was one of many first chief executives to endorse Mr. Trump’s presidential candidacy, although he stated he turned down a proposal to develop into power 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 power govt returned to Mr. Trump’s crew with renewed conviction.
Mr. Hamm organized an “power spherical desk” for Mr. Trump at Mar-a-Lago final April with about 20 power 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 objective, nevertheless it was a serious 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 govt 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 lately described the 2 cupboard secretaries as a “dream crew of unimaginable proportions.” He hosted a lavish inauguration party at which oil-and-gas trade firms and lobbying teams celebrated their shut ties to the brand new administration.
Talking at a serious oil trade convention in Houston, Mr. Wright echoed concepts from Mr. Hamm’s 2023 ebook, “Recreation Changer.” Mr. Hamm wrote that fossil fuels “are the rationale we’ve a contemporary world, lifting billions out of poverty.”
In his personal rousing protection of fossil fuels, Mr. Wright called local weather change a mere “aspect 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 stated.
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 lately and fell in 2024 as extra solar energy and batteries helped scale back summertime value spikes. The day of Mr. Wright’s speech in Houston, as a lot as 67 p.c of the electricity retaining the lights on in Texas got here from photo voltaic and wind farms.
For Mr. Hamm, power poverty is private. He was the youngest of 13 youngsters born to sharecroppers in central Oklahoma who relied on kerosene lamps for gentle and blocks of ice for refrigeration till an electrical line was strung to his household’s home. He began his profession as an oil discipline 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 chargeable for fueling stronger warmth waves and deadlier fires . The vexing query is methods to stability responding to local weather change with powering the economic system within the coming years. Mr. Hamm’s reply appears to be a return to the power system we had 20 years in the past, wherein wind and photo voltaic power had been insignificant, and pure gasoline was changing into dominant, alongside nuclear.
Pursuing the previous methods wouldn’t solely speed up international warming but in addition undermine the power increase unleashed by renewable power and trendy fracking strategies. And for what? We’re not in an power 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 power manufacturing data with each passing month. And our greenhouse gasoline emissions are down about 18 p.c since 2005, although this pattern may reverse if new Trump administration insurance policies gradual or cease improvement of wind and photo voltaic farms. Mr. Hamm’s hard-line, pro-fossil-fuel place would reverse these modifications and lift costs.
Vitality is just too vital to upset the apple cart. Each enterprise and each family will depend on it. So does our nationwide safety, and our competitiveness. Shutting down photo voltaic and batteries, the fastest-growing elements of our energy grids, solely dangers the longer term.
Russell Gold is a distinguished author at Texas Month-to-month and the creator of “Superpower: One Man’s Quest to Rework American Vitality.”
The Occasions is dedicated to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to listen to what you concentrate on this or any of our articles. Listed here are some tips. And right here’s our e-mail: letters@nytimes.com.
Observe the New York Occasions Opinion part on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Bluesky, WhatsApp and Threads.
