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Ambivalence in the Oil Industry

Dave McCurdy AAM.jpg

According to a Reuters report posted on October 24, there's been a good deal of ambivalence in the oil patch during the recent Presidential campaign. Yes, more than a week has passed since then, but this gives me a distinctive take for what will be my last pre-election campaign-related posting in this blog, so I'll take it.

One of the Trump campaign's themes -- admittedly a sort of second-tier theme, one assigned to VP candidate Pence -- was that the Obama administration is guilty of a "war on carbon," which the HRC administration will continue, so the coal, oil, and gas industries should all have boarded the TrumpTrain in self defense.

The reasoning would have been more sound if Sanders had been the Democratic Party's nominee, but they did what they could with it.

Anyway, the Reuters story, working from federal campaign finance filings, says that the oil industry's contributions have been about evenly split between the two campaigns.

During an earlier part of the campaign cycle, the industry had a distinct preference for Jeb Bush.

During the general election campaign, their general view has been that, yes, HRC is pro regulation and the industry was unenthusiastic about that, but Trump is both a wild card and anti-trade, and it is definitely unenthusiastic about both of those points.

The story quoted Dave McCurdy, the president of the American Gas Association, portrayed above. He finds Trump's "vision for America on trade" disturbing.

Also, with their war-on-carbon stuff, the Trumpets may have falsely assumed the solidarity of the various "carbon" industries. The natural gas industry in particular is trying to sell itself as party of the solution to global change, as McCurdy also mentioned, so denialism in that respect did the Trumpets no good with them.

Something to think about as the votes come in on Tuesday.
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