Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump is considering nominating Oklahoma fracking mogul Harold Hamm as energy secretary, according to sources close to Trump’s campaign.
Republican fundraiser Dan Eberhart told The New York Daily News he was informed by the Trump campaign that Hamm was the “leading contender” for the top energy position. Eberhart said the subject was broached during discussions with top donors during this week’s Republican National Convention.
Three other sources inside the Trump campaign confirmed Eberhart’s assertion.
If nominated, Hamm would be the first energy secretary chosen directly from the energy industry, marking the first time an energy magnate was chosen for the position since its creation in 1977.
Hamm made history in 2015, becoming the first person to agreeing to pay his ex-wife nearly $1 billion ($975 million) in a divorce settlement spanning several years — the settlement will likely be chump change for Hamm, as his fortune is now estimated at nearly $12 billion.
Hamm’s ex-wife, Sue Ann Arnall, subsequently refused to accept a check for $974,790,317.77 from Hamm, the CEO of Continental Resources, CNBC reported shortly after the settlement decree.
Environmentalists responded to the news with a collective eye roll, with some saying it makes sense that Trump, who has used much of his campaign to champion coal country and natural gas development, would pick a fracking giant as his energy secretary.
“Given that Hamm’s as close as we’ve got to a fracker-in-chief in this country, it would be an apropos pick for a president who thinks global warming is a hoax manufactured by the Chinese,” environmentalist Bill McKibben told reporters.
The lion’s share of the natural gas boom in 2015 was concentrated in Pennsylvania, Ohio, West Virginia, and Hamm’s Oklahoma. Together, these states accounted for 35 percent of total American gas production while the rest of the country saw a modest decline.
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