Trump's Fossil Fuels Tied to Masculinity, Not Just Cash — SkimNews
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- EPA announced it will lift carbon emission limits on coal- and gas-burning power plants, reversing Biden- and Obama-era climate policies as part of a broader Trump administration deregulation push.
- Fossil fuel companies donated at least $75 million to Trump's campaign, with oil and gas firms giving nearly $12 million to his 2025 inauguration fund and Energy Transfer Partners and its CEO contributing at least $25 million; Trump called industry donations a 'deal' when soliciting them in 2024.
- Virginia Tech professor Cara Daggett's 2018 paper 'Petro-Masculinity: Fossil Fuels and Authoritarian Desire' argues the American right's fossil fuel commitment reflects a masculine ideal, with green energy framed as effeminate — a symbolic, not just economic, loyalty.
- The Trump administration has loosened carbon limits on vehicles and household appliances too, while a 2022 Supreme Court ruling found 6-3 along party lines that the EPA lacks independent authority to regulate carbon at all.
- China has surpassed the US in solar panel production, a competitive cost the column flags as a tangible consequence of the US pro-fossil-fuel stance.
Why it matters: The EPA's lifting of carbon limits delivers immediate policy wins for fossil fuel donors who steered at least $75 million to Trump's campaign and called it a 'deal.' Donegan's column argues the deeper driver is cultural — a masculinity-coded commitment to dirty energy that persists even as China pulls ahead in solar manufacturing and the US cedes ground in the global clean-tech race.
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