Donald Trump and the politics of disaster

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Oct 03, 2024 View in browser   By Joel Kirkland Presented by Chevron Former President Donald Trump prepares to give remarks during a visit on Monday to Valdosta, Georgia, which was damaged by Hurricane Helene. | Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images Former President Donald Trump has spent this week criticizing Democrats for their response to Hurricane Helene — going so far as to say party leaders aren’t interested in helping Republicans in the hardest-hit areas of southern Appalachia. During a visit to Valdosta, Georgia, he claimed without evidence that the Biden administration — and Democratic North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper — were “going out of their way to not help people in Republican areas.” But Trump has his own record to stand on, Scott Waldman and Thomas Frank report. A review of Trump’s record by POLITICO’s E&E News and interviews with two former Trump White House officials found that the former president was flagrantly partisan at times in response to disasters. On at least three occasions, they said, he hesitated to give disaster aid to areas he considered politically hostile or ordered special treatment for pro-Trump states. For example, Trump had initially refused to send aid to Orange County, California, after its 2018 wildfires, according to Mark Harvey, who was Trump’s senior director for resilience policy on the National Security Council staff. Harvey told E&E News that Trump changed his mind after he found that the heavily damaged area of southern California had more Trump supporters than the entire state of Iowa. “We went as far as looking up how many votes he got in those impacted areas … to show him these are people who voted for you,” said Harvey, who recently endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris alongside more than 100 other Republican former national security officials. The exchange — not previously reported — drew responses from President Joe Biden and Democratic California Gov. Gavin Newsom. “It’s the most basic part of being president, and this guy knows nothing about it,” Biden posted on X, reacting to a tweet about an earlier version of this article. Newsom piled on, calling the episode “a glimpse into the future if we elect” Trump. The Trump campaign did not respond to a request seeking comment. No flood insurance: Few people in western North Carolina have flood insurance, leaving them vulnerable to financial ruin in the wake of disasters such as Helene, Chelsea Harvey and Tom report. An analysis by E&E News found that just 0.8 percent of the nearly 700,000 households in the North Carolina counties heavily flooded by Helene have flood insurance through the Federal Emergency Management Agency, according to agency records. The state has also devoted relatively little of its federal funding for disaster protection in its western region. That’s even as areas around Asheville, situated on the southern end of the Blue Ridge Mountains, face extreme flood and landslide risks. As global temperatures rise, stronger hurricanes are making their way further inland, beyond the coasts. That means disasters such as Helene, previously almost unthinkable, may keep happening in the coming decades.   It's Thursday — thank you for tuning in to POLITICO's Power Switch. I'm your host, Joel Kirkland. Power Switch is brought to you by the journalists behind E&E News and POLITICO Energy. Send your tips, comments, questions to Jkirkland@eenews.net. Listen to today’s POLITICO Energy podcast Today in POLITICO Energy’s podcast: Zack Colman breaks down the world's lack of a plan for a second Trump presidency.   A message from Chevron: Chevron’s latest offshore platform, Anchor, is forging new paths to the future. Its technological innovations help us to reach previously inaccessible oil and natural gas reserves in the U.S. Gulf of Mexico.   Power Centers Iran's new $2 billion dollar oil refinery at Bandar-Abbas is expected to turn the country into an exporter of refined petroleum products and meet its own needs for such products. | Jamshid Bairami/AFP via Getty Images Oil and the escalating Israel-Iran conflict The next stages of Israel’s conflict with Iran could test the resilience of the global oil market as tensions escalate across the Middle East. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is weighing options for retaliation against Iran for missile strikes on Israel — with Iranian oil fields and nuclear facilities potential targets. Analysts say that could then result in Iranian assaults against oil fields in Saudi Arabia, an American ally, or lead to the closing off of areas of the Persian Gulf to disrupt petroleum shipments, Ben Lefebvre reports. For decades, conflicts in the oil-rich region frequently spooked oil markets. But now, Middle East military skirmishes are causing more shrugs than drastic price spikes. That is a welcome development for the Biden administration, which has faced criticism from Republicans over fuel prices and is trying to contain the fallout from Iran’s launch of nearly 200 missiles into Israel on Tuesday. The U.S., Brazil and other places are contributing more to global oil supplies, and that makes it harder for Iran or any other country to send prices rocketing, energy and security analysts told POLITICO. Futures contracts for Brent crude, the international price index, settled at close to $78 a barrel in New York on Thursday. DOE maps Biden's grid policy The Department of Energy has issued a planning road map for a major expansion of the nation’s high-voltage power grid, Peter Behr and Jeffrey Tomich write. The Biden administration also injected $1.5 billion worth of purchase commitments into four large transmission projects in Maine, Oklahoma, New Mexico and Texas. The department's work on mapping out routes for future lines is a critical part of the Biden administration's policy of enabling far more wind and solar power to move across the power grid. It's also aimed at shoring up and connecting electricity systems increasingly under threat by extreme weather. If Democrats keep the White House after the November election, the DOE report is expected to guide efforts to build more long-distance lines that can ship energy across multiple states. An Energy Department under Trump is expected to set aside the map and shift to new efforts to reinvigorate fossil fuel projects. Rematch in 'Cancer Alley' case A trio of Louisiana legal challengers laid out a sweeping narrative that traced a direct line between slavery and exposure to air pollution. But their bid to upend one parish’s land-use practices faltered when a federal judge threw out the suit eight months later on prosaic procedural grounds, writes Sean Reilly. Now, those plaintiffs are regrouping for a rematch before the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. Oral arguments in the case are set for Monday in New Orleans. At stake is what lawyers for Inclusive Louisiana, a nonprofit advocacy group, and two other plaintiffs say is a long-standing policy of “steering harmful industry into majority-Black districts” in St. James Parish.   A message from Chevron:   In Other News Nuclear boost: Constellation Energy is reportedly pursuing a $1.6 billion federal loan guarantee to help finance a restart of a Three Mile Island nuclear unit to sell energy to Microsoft. Gridlock: Power companies and environmental advocates say PJM, the nation's largest grid operator, won't let developers add batteries or clean energy when they have surplus capacity. Subscriber Zone A driver charges his electric vehicle at a charging station in Monterey Park, California, on Aug. 31, 2022. | Frederic J. Brown/AFP via Getty Images A showcase of some of our best subscriber content. The Department of Energy rolled out a $1.05 billion loan guarantee to the electric vehicle charging company EVgo. Pressure is ramping up on the Export-Import Bank to stop financing fossil fuels projects overseas. The Edison Electric Institute projects electric vehicles will make up more than a quarter of all American cars on the road a decade from now. That's it for today, folks! Thanks for reading.   A message from Chevron: Chevron’s latest offshore platform, Anchor, is setting a deepwater benchmark by helping to safely produce oil and natural gas at up to 20,000 psi. Anchor will play a leading role in Chevron’s goal to produce 300,000 net barrels of oil equivalent per day in the U.S. Gulf of Mexico by 2026. That’s energy in progress.     Follow us on Twitter Arianna Skibell @ariannaskibell   Follow us

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