President-Elect Donald Trump selected hedge-fund titan Scott Bessent as his pick for U.S. Treasury Secretary. His financial firm, Key Square Capital Management LLC, has made millions of dollars investing in the oil and gas industry. Bessent has been a vocal opponent of renewable energy development and the Inflation Reduction Act, which spurred billions in manufacturing investment into America’s rural economies. If confirmed, Bessent would likely use his position to halt progress on the green economy, and protect his own bottom line and that of his wealthy friends at the helm of the oil and gas industry.
Fact: Bessent’s company, Key Square Capital Management, invests heavily in the oil and gas industry, profiting off of the capital gains of corporate polluters.
- As recently as the first quarter of 2024, Scott Bessent’s Key Square Capital Management LLC owned a $3.1 million stake in LyondellBasell Industries, which owns an oil refinery in Houston.
- Bessent’s firm has also previously held stakes in coal producer Console Energy, Peabody Energy, Arch Resources (formerly Arch Coal), and Valero Energy.
Fact: A critic of clean energy, Bessent has publicly attacked the Inflation Reduction Act and would likely use his position to roll back the country’s clean energy progress.
- Scott Bessent has publicly criticized the Inflation Reduction Act, and as Treasury Secretary he’d be in a position to rewrite or reverse clean energy tax credit portions of the law, which President-elect Trump has called the “greatest scam in history.”
- Some commentators have also noted Bessent’s suggestion that the Treasury sell more longer-term debt “may increase longer-term interest rates,” which would be more likely to harm renewable energy developers given the greater up-front costs for renewables projects, as opposed to their competitors in the fossil fuel industry.
Fact: Bessent is pushing a misguided economic plan that relies on ramping up oil production to an unsustainable level – which not only exceeds U.S. pipeline capacity but also would dampen global oil prices and hurt tax revenue.
- During the 2024 Presidential campaign, Scott Bessent pitched Donald Trump on a so-called “‘3-3-3 plan’ that would aim for 3% economic growth, reduce the budget deficit to 3% of gross domestic product, and increase domestic oil production by 3 million barrels per day.”
- Critics of this plan have noted that even if Bessent achieved an additional 3 million barrels per day in output, the new production would likely exceed U.S. pipeline capacity, dampen global oil prices and thus hurt tax revenue, and wouldn’t account for the fact that many refineries prefer heavier imported oil over the light crude produced in the U.S.
