Let me count the ways American business and a huge chunk of U.S. citizens would prefer a few coins in their pockets, over let’s say... breathing.

Former President Donald Trump  hosted a high-stakes dinner at his Mar-a-Lago Club last month where he boldly pitched  a scheme to top oil executives, The Washington Post reported.

During his presentation, Trump asked the assembled oil execs for $1 billion campaign cash in exchange for environmental policy rollbacks. He promised to dismantle Biden’s environmental policies if reelected, that have been a thorn in the side of the fossil fuel industry.

Yes, the proposal to fund Trump’s legal and election funds is probably legal, if not totally immoral.

The oil industry has a long list of policy actions it would want Trump to take, including dismantling parts of President Joe Biden’s green agenda and rolling back pollution regulations that threaten to crimp their profits. Oil executives were reported to also be preparing some highly specific requests for Trump, including executive orders they hope he would sign if reelected.

The meetings included executives from oil companies Exxon Mobil, Chevron, ConocoPhillips and Continental Resources as well as from natural gas producer EQT and gas exporter Cheniere Energy, and the trade association American Petroleum Institute.

In a piece written by Politico: “Isn’t that what campaigning is?” Bradley Smith, chair of the Institute for Free Speech and former chair of the Federal Election Commission.

Another request by oil executives want Trump to end the Biden administration’s pause on new natural gas export permits and expand the number of offshore drilling lease sales in the Gulf of Mexico made available by Biden’s Interior Department.

But wait!

Trump also suggested he would slash the Biden administration’s tax credits for electric vehicles and spend less government money developing wind power, according to The Washington Post. Those are both major themes he’s sounded repeatedly in his public rallies and stump speeches.

“President Trump is supported by people who share his vision of American energy dominance to protect our national security and bring down the cost of living for all Americans,” said Trump campaign spokesperson Karoline Leavitt in a statement to Politico.

But wait!

Trump isn’t the only Republican jumping on the anti-climate change facts.

CNN reported that Florida Republican Governor Ron DeSantis  and his cronies "are going to exceptional lengths to delete many mentions of climate change from state laws in a new bill that DeSantis signed into law on Wednesday.

“Florida rejects the designs of the left to weaken our energy grid, pursue a radical climate agenda, and promote foreign adversaries,” DeSantis said in a post on X, posting a graphic that said the law would protect the state from “green zealots.”

The CNN report continued..."The wide-ranging law makes several changes to the state’s energy policy – in some cases deleting entire sections of state law that talk about the importance of cutting planet-warming pollution. The bill would also give preferential treatment to natural gas and ban offshore wind energy, even though there are no wind farms planned off Florida’s coast.

The bill deletes the phrase ‘climate’ eight times – often in reference to reducing the impacts of global climate change through its energy policy or directing state agencies to buy ‘climate friendly’ products when they are cost-effective and available. The bill also gets rid of a requirement that state-purchased vehicles should be fuel efficient.

“What Florida is really doing is saying we’re going to de-emphasize any policies that would help mitigate climate change,” said Emily Hammond, a professor of law at George Washington University.

It’s certainly not the first time Republican politicians have deleted the phrase ‘climate change’ – erasing the phrase from government websites was a commonplace activity during the Trump administration. Experts said few other states have passed bills to move away from clean energy and erase climate mentions from their laws.

“It goes further than any other state has gone in repealing its existing climate laws,” Michael Gerrard, founder of the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law at Columbia University, told CNN.

The Guardian reported: "In recent rallies, Trump, the likely Republican nominee, has called renewable energy “a scam business” and vowed to “drill, baby, drill”. On his first day in office, Trump has said he would repeal “crooked Joe Biden’s insane electric vehicle mandate” and approve a glut of new gas export terminals currently paused by Biden."

Heat waves, floods, tornadoes be damned. There is NO question, according to scientists and level minded politicians that climate change is fueled by human-caused burning fossil fuels, but despite the settled science, the overwhelming evidence and the billions of dollars in increases for disaster preparation and recovery that climate change is costing the country. Too many Republicans have grown more skeptical of the need to prioritize fixing it.

Meanwhile residents are finding out that insurance companies are deserting many areas of the U.S., or rates are so high they become totally unaffordable. 

In a 2023 NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist poll almost three-quarters of Republicans (72%) said the economy should be given priority, even at the risk of ignoring climate change. That is up 13 points since 2018 – despite the increases in climate-change-related weather disasters.

So, yes, climate change is perhaps costly, but the current fossil fuel industry is raking in record billions. 

If you are Republican and support the majority opinion of the Party and its leaders, dollars trump life.