6 Fracking Billionaires and Climate Denial Groups Behind Trump’s Cabinet

By Joe Fassler, a writer and journalist whose work on climate and technology appears in outlets like The Guardian, The New York Times, and Wired. Originally published at DeSmog.

Since winning the U.S. election, president-elect Donald Trump has been filling his cabinet with conservative ideologues that could set back progress on fighting climate change and shifting to cleaner forms of energy for years – if not decades. 

Many of Trump’s picks aren’t necessarily household names, but they’re backed by major players in the world of climate obstruction. They include fracking billionaires and powerful conservative organizations that for decades have sought to block climate solutions and confuse the American public about climate science.

These anti-climate networks and fossil fuel executives are loudly expressing their support for Trump’s cabinet selections – and in some cases actively lobbied for them. Here are the top six power players behind the scenes you should be paying attention to. 

America First Policy Institute (AFPI)

Trump’s cabinet picks so far have more direct links to AFPI than any other organization. And that’s no surprise. Founded in 2021 by members of the former president’s cabinet, AFPI has been viewed as a hotspot for long-time allies vying for their place in a second Trump term – what some have called a “White House in waiting.”

AFPI’s policy agenda looks a lot like Project 2025, the controversial conservative wishlist catalyzed by the Heritage Foundation that was attacked by top Democrats and others during the U.S. election. However, it lacks the Heritage-backed effort’s brand recognition and political baggage. In addition to advocating for vast cuts to the federal government workforce and broad deregulation of industry, AFPI calls for dramatic expansion of domestic oil and gas production – despite broad scientific consensus that doing so would be incompatible with a livable future. 

It’s promoted the myth that renewable energy is unreliable and weather-dependent, and that only fossil fuels can provide power consistently, a bad faith assertion with no basis in fact. And it’s called for a halt to new policies that would “disproportionately target one sector at the expense of another” – a stance that would hobble the clean energy transition.  

At least 11 Trump cabinet nominees have ties to AFPI, including some of his top posts. Former Republican Congressman Lee Zeldin (Environmental Protection Agency) is currently a chair at AFPI and a board member at its lobbying arm, America First Works, which publicly congratulated him on the nomination. Former Florida attorney general Pam Bondi (Attorney General of the U.S.) is chair at AFPI’s Center for Litigation. Linda McMahon (Department of Education) is the chair of AFPI’s board. Brooke Rollins (Department of Agriculture) is currently AFPI’s President and CEO.

Economist Kevin Hassett (National Economic Council) serves as chair of AFPI’s Board of Academic Advisors. Former Republican congressman Doug Collins (Veterans Affairs) is chair of AFPI’s Georgia chapter. Former Trump director of national security John Ratcliffe (Central Intelligence Agency) is co-chair of AFPI’s Center for American Security, where Kash Patel (Federal Bureau of Investigation) is a senior fellow. Former acting U.S. Attorney General Matthew Whitaker (NATO chief) is co-chair of AFPI’s Center for Law and Justice. 

Project 2025 – Heritage Foundation – Texas Public Policy Foundation 

Project 2025 generated plenty of controversy during the 2024 election cycle, and was quickly disavowed by Trump despite his numerous close ties to the effort. But the organizations that co-signed or contributed to the 900-page “Mandate for Leadership” blueprint for reshaping the federal government, a massive white paper overseen by the Heritage Foundation, are still well-represented among Trump’s pending appointees. 

The most prominent links are to the Texas Public Policy Foundation (TPPF), a think tank that routinely downplays the dangers of anthropogenic climate change and calls clean energy policies “catastrophic.” It’s been heavily funded over the years by the network of foundations linked to oil and gas billionaires Charles Koch and his later brother David, according to DeSmog’s review of financial disclosure forms. Five other family fortunes have funneled over $120 million into Project 2025 advisory groups since 2020, a DeSmog analysis earlier this year found.

At least twelve Trump cabinet nominees have ties to groups that signed on to the Project 2025 “Mandate for Leadership” document, or were involved with the initiative directly. 

Rollins (Department of Agriculture) spent 15 years running the Texas Public Policy Institute, which itself has been a feeder organization for the Heritage Foundation; TPPF’s past president, Kevin Roberts, went on to lead Heritage. Wright (Department of Energy) spoke at a Texas Public Policy Foundation event in 2022, and was congratulated on his nomination by Kevin Roberts. Florida GOP Sen. Marco Rubio (Secretary of State) was also praised for his nomination by the Heritage Foundation. 

Russel Vought (Office of Management and Budget) wrote Project 2025’s chapter on reconfiguring the executive branch. James Braid (legislative affairs) a legislative director for incoming vice president J. D. Vance, is an advisor to Project 2025 nonprofit American Moment, and also appeared in an instructional video for the Heritage-backed effort. Karoline Leavitt (Press Secretary) also made one of the training videos, according to ProPublica. Federal Communications Commission commissioner Brendan Carr, whom Trump seeks to promote to chair the agency, wrote Project 2025’s section on his employer.

Former acting director of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Tom Homan (border czar), a visiting fellow at the Heritage Foundation, was listed as a contributor to the “Mandate for Leadership” document. Michigan Republican party chair Pete Hoekstra (Ambassador to Canada) was also listed as a contributor, as was Ratcliffe (Central Intelligence Agency). 

Tim Dunn 

Dunn, the Texas oil and gas billionaire and pastor who was one of the Trump campaign’s biggest donors in 2024, has numerous links to recently announced cabinet nominees — starting with the fact that he sits on the America First Policy Institute’s board and reportedly helped found the organization. But he’s also a director of Convention of States, a focused, well-funded effort to rewrite the U.S. constitution in ways that would “limit the power and jurisdiction of the federal government,” and shift the country towards his vision of a theocratic petrostate. Critics call it a conservative Christian Nationalist plan for America.

In addition to pushing for policy that would hamper the federal government’s ability to respond proactively to environmental crises, Convention of States has published blog posts that call climate change a “hoax” and a source of “irrational hysteria.” 

At least two Project 2025 organizations also have close ties to the Convention of States effort supported by Dunn. Mark Meckler, co-founder of Project 2025 signee Tea Party Patriots, currently serves as president of the effort’s lobbying arm, Convention of States Action. And Michael Farris, who co-founded Convention of States with Meckler, recently left to lead Alliance Defending Freedom, another Project 2025 signee. 

Its effort to force a constitutional convention has been supported by the American Legislative Exchange Council, an organization that works with corporations like ExxonMobil and Koch Industries to supply lawmakers with templates for legislation.  

In addition to those linked to him through AFPI, four other cabinet nominees have connections to Dunn. Pharmaceutical billionaire and former Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy (Department of Government Efficiency) has endorsed the Convention of States, as has Trump campaign press chief Leavitt (Press Secretary). Fox News host Pete Hegseth (Department of Defense), whose nomination is embattled after sexual assault allegations and questions about relevant military experience, is also a “long-time” endorser of the Convention of States.

Harold Hamm 

Harold Hamm, who made billions drilling for oil in North Dakota’s Bakken Formation, gave more than $1.6 million to Trump’s re-election campaign this year. The company he founded, Continental Resources, where he currently sits as executive chair, donated another $2 million to the campaign. 

Hamm, who has downplayed the threat posed by climate change in numerous past statements, advocates for “opening up more federal lands to drilling, easing the Endangered Species Act, and curbing numerous regulations at the Environmental Protection Agency,” according to The Washington Post. He reportedly gave at least $1 million as a part of the donor network run by Charles Koch and his late brother David Koch, a key actor in the funding and dissemination of climate disinformation. 

At least two Trump cabinet appointees were directly endorsed by Hamm: Liberty Energy CEO Chris Wright (Department of Energy) and North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum (Department of Interior). 

Alliance for Responsible Citizenship 

The Alliance for Responsible Citizenship (ARC), launched by conservative influencer Jordan Peterson in 2023, includes several individuals on its advisory board who deny or downplay the threat of anthropogenic climate change. 

These include Center for African Prosperity director Magatte Wade, whose organization is a project of the Atlas Network coalition of free-market think tanks with a decades-long history of promoting climate denial; Bjorn Lomberg, a political scientist and activist who argues against “climate alarmism” in his writings; Michael Shellenberger, Breakthrough Institute co-founder and political hopeful, who called focusing on the dangers of climate change a form of “crying wolf”; and Peterson himself, who has likened climate activism to a mostly baseless “psuedo-religion” that is really about imposing socialist control on society. 

Other anti-climate activists affiliated with ARC events include fossil fuel evangelist Alex Epstein, former BP scientist Steve Koonin and Dennis Prager, founder of the rightwing media outlet PragerU. Epstein has enthusiastically backed Wright as Trump’s pick for Department of Energy, saying that he was “thrilled” about the nomination, while both Koonin and Prager have previously engaged with or promoted the fossil fuel executive. 

In addition, Wright (Department of Energy) has called both Bjorn Lomborg and Magatte Wade his friends, and taped a panel discussion for ARC earlier this year. Ramaswamy (Department of Government Efficiency) is also on ARC’s advisory board.

CO2 Coalition 

Many of the organizations in DeSmog’s Climate Disinformation Database simply downplay the threat of climate change. The CO2 Coalition, a 501(c)(3) established in 2015, actually embraces it. In materials ranging from white papers to children’s books, the Coalition argues that planet-warming emissions only serve to make plants healthier, the world more livable, and people more prosperous. “Life-giving CO2 should be valued, not demonized,” a staffer argued, in an indicative blog post.

Over the years, the CO2 Coalition has been funded by donors working to obstruct progress on climate change, including the 85 Fund, the Charles Koch Institute, and the Mercer Family Foundation. 

At least one Trump cabinet appointee has been shown to have links to the CO2 Coalition, according to DeSmog’s previous reporting: Wright (Department of Energy), who has received the organization’s endorsement.  “I had a chance to sit down one-on-one with Chris in 2022 in his Denver office and was impressed with his knowledge and views on energy philosophy, which aligned closely with those of the CO2 Coalition,” wrote Gregory Wrightstone, the group’s executive director. 

“The main thing that [Wright] and I and the CO2 Coalition agree on is that increasing CO2 is a net benefit,” Wrightstone told DeSmog in a recent interview. “It’s not the demon molecule, it’s the miracle molecule.”

Taken together, these cabinet nominees suggest a disturbing pattern for how the new administration plans to govern: At a time when scientific and policy experts broadly agree that climate action is urgently needed, Trump’s picks are backed by some of the most reactionary obstructionists in American politics.