Oil and Gas Billionaires Drum Up Dollars for Trump

Early in his term, President Biden seemed to have struck an uneasy truce with the oil and gas industry.

Mr. Biden had imposed restrictions on drilling as part of his ambitious climate agenda, but he also approved an enormous $8 billion oil project in Alaska. The United States had become the world’s leading exporter of natural gas, and no other country in history was pumping more crude. The industry was enjoying record profits.

Then, in January, Mr. Biden paused new permits for export facilities for liquefied natural gas.

That decision galvanized oil and gas companies against Mr. Biden, according to industry lobbyists, and will be an undercurrent at a fund-raising lunch set for Wednesday in Houston. The luncheon, organized by three oil executives, will benefit former President Donald J. Trump, who is running to unseat Mr. Biden and is expected to attend, according to several people who have seen the invitation.

To the industry, Mr. Biden’s pause on new gas export permits “was a wake-up call,” said Thomas J. Pyle, president of the American Energy Alliance, which supports the fossil fuel industry. “He could be potentially icing billions of dollars in long-term L.N.G. contracts. That’s real. That’s tangible.”

One of the luncheon hosts is the billionaire Kelcy Lee Warren, who, as executive chairman of Energy Transfer, has built a national network of pipelines, including those serving L.N.G. export facilities. His Dallas-based company, which exports oil and gas products to about 50 countries, tangled with the Biden administration last year when it refused to extend a permit for a proposed export terminal that had run into delays. An indefinite pause on new permits complicates plans by Energy Transfer to continue an ambitious international expansion.

Another host, Harold G. Hamm, the executive chairman and founder of Continental Resources, is one of the pioneers of the shale oil boom that turned the United States into the world’s largest crude exporter. Also joining is Vicki Hollub, the chief executive of Occidental Petroleum, one of the top U.S. oil producers.