Newsom calls Trump request for $1 billion from oil industry 'open corruption'

(CN) — California Governor Gavin Newsom called former President Donald Trump’s request for $1 billion from the oil industry to support his reelection campaign “open corruption.”

Newsom, a Democrat, made the accusation in a speech Thursday at the Vatican Climate Summit, where he addressed other governors, mayors and civic and faith leaders from around the world.

“Former President Donald Trump, who just last week, I never thought I’d see this — I’ve heard it, but I’ve never seen it,” Newsom told the attendees. “Donald Trump, just last week, had oil executives convening, talking about his election. And he openly asked them for $1 billion to roll back the environmental progress of the Biden administration, the environmental progress that we’ve made over the course of the last half century. Open corruption.”

He continued: “A billion dollars to pollute our states, to pollute our country, and to pollute this planet and to rollback progress in the open. This is the moment we’re living in, and it calls for clarity. And it calls for understanding of what we’re up against.”

Trump reportedly made his pitch to a group of oil executives and lobbyists at a dinner at his Mar-a-Lago resort last month. According to the Washington Post, Trump hosted a 20-person “Energy Round Table” with top oil and gas executives and requested $1 billion in campaign contributions from the industry executives in exchange for an explicit promise that, if elected, his administration would roll back environmental regulations.

U.S. Representative Jamie Raskin, a Democrat from Maryland and a ranking member of the House Committee on Oversight and Accountability, said this week that he has demanded answers from nine Big Oil CEOs following the reports of the quid pro quo proposition Trump made to dismantle fossil fuel regulations in exchange for $1 billion in contributions to his presidential campaign.

In his speech at Vatican, Newsom called the climate crisis a “fossil fuel crisis” because it is caused by burning coal, gas, and oil, and he called out the oil industry for its obstruction of regulations to curtail greenhouse gasses.

“It’s been said and I’ll repeat it: the polluted heart of the climate crisis are these fossil fuel companies that have been lying to us,” Newsom said. “They’ve been deceiving us. They’ve known the science. They’ve denied the science. They’ve delayed advancement.”

Newsom, 56, in his second and final term as governor, cited California’s ambitions and progress in eliminating fossil fuels from the state’s energy sector, typically taking a leadership role among other states in adopting new regulations.

The state has the largest economy in the U.S. and the fifth largest in the world, and has been running on 100% clean energy for the past 32 days, Newsom said at the summit.

“In every single instance, California has exceeded its nation-leading environmental goals,” the governor said. “We’re in the ‘how’ business, and it’s about the power of emulation, proving that we can run the fifth largest economy, its economic engine, as we change the way we produce and consume energy.”

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