Oil industry pays $1 billion for policy priorities, collects weaker mileage rules days later.

…(cont) That was the first entry on the ledger. The second came on September 24th, when Senate Democrats released a report titled "The Billion Dollar Deal." It says that while running for president in 2024, Donald Trump told oil and gas executives he would pursue their policy priorities if the industry raised a billion dollars for his campaign. The industry raised it. The report says that after he returned to office, he pursued those priorities, enriching people invested in fossil fuels, himself among them, at the public's expense.

Two days later, on September 26th, the President said he had personally ended the Biden administration's electric vehicle mandate and approved updated fuel economy standards in its place. The 2024 EV rule had been built to push automakers toward electric fleets by tightening pollution limits on new vehicles; the update loosens them.

I want to be careful with the arithmetic, because precision is the whole job here. Thirty-two days. Three rules. I am not going to tell you those figures are connected. I am going to tell you which column each one turns up in: the pledge posts as a receivable in 2024, the rules post as the payout in 2026, and both sides land in the fossil fuel industry's books.

The Transportation Department did not attach a memo explaining what the August rule, the September rule, or today's rule pay for. The invoice already covered it. These three are the delivery.