Dakota Access Pipeline Company Is Top Fossil Fuel Donor to Trump’s War Chest

Pipeline company Energy Transfer LP and its CEO, Kelcy Warren, were the fossil fuel industry’s top contributors to a super PAC supporting President Donald Trump during the first half of 2025, making a combined $25 million in contributions to that PAC alone.

Best known as the company behind the Dakota Access Pipeline that sparked an Indigenous-led resistance movement at Standing Rock in 2016, Energy Transfer has a history of leaks, spills, safety violations, explosionsand lawsuits against activists and journalists. One week after Trump took office, Energy Transfer filed a lawsuit challenging the enforcement process at the Department of Transportation’s pipeline safety office, which in 2023 fined the company $2.5 million for an accident that left one pipeline worker dead in 2020.

Energy Transfer LP and Warren were among a list including crypto capitalists, wealthy corporations, and billionaires seeking political clout with the administration. Last week, the super PAC MAGA Inc. reported nearly $177 million in contributions in what critics are calling a “pay-for-access” scheme to peddle influence in the White House. The president has invited wealthy donors to pay up millions to join him for dinners and meet-and-greets at his properties in recent months.

Trump is not eligible to run for president again, but MAGA Inc. and Trump’s leadership PAC reportedly raised more than $200 million over the initial months of his term, further padding Trump’s political war chest ahead of the midterm elections.

During his reelection campaign, Trump asked fossil fuel executives for $1 billion in contributions, promising tax breaks and the reversal of clean air protections put in place under President Joe Biden to combat climate change if he were to be elected. The oil and gas industry ponied up about $25 million to reelect Trump out of more than $219 million spent on the last election, mostly in support of Republicans, who have used their control of Congress and the White House to slash environmental oversight.

On January 27, shortly after taking office, Trump issued a series of executive orders in favor of the oil and gas industry. That included an order declaring fossil fuel production “inadequate” and declaring a “national energy emergency,” even though the U.S. remains the world’s top producer of fossil fuels, and the industry is rushing to increase exports of oil and cheap fracked gas. Trump also withdrew the U.S. from international climate agreements and eliminated federal programs aimed at addressing environmental racism.

Energy Transfer and its CEO have emerged as top Trump supporters within the fossil fuel industry, with Warren making significant campaign contributions to Trump in 2016, 2020, and again in 2024. The company also supported the 2016 presidential campaign of Rick Perry, the former Texas governor who served as energy secretary during Trump’s first term before resigning in 2019 and rejoining the Energy Transfer board of directors.

However, the latest $25 million in combined contributions to MAGA Inc. from Warren and his pipeline company came after Trump won reelection and is barred by the Constitution from running again. Tyson Slocum, director of the energy program at Public Citizen, a watchdog group tracking Trump’s fundraising effort, said contributions to the super PAC are a “primary means for Trump’s transactional accommodation of corporate deregulatory demands.”

“Energy Transfer’s Kelcy Lee Warren is Trump’s biggest fossil fuel donor, and among his radical demands are an evisceration of the ability of pipeline safety regulators to enforce violations,” Slocum said in an email. “Mr. Warren’s Energy Transfer Partners has a disturbing record of paying fines for failure to comply with safety rules, including pleading to criminal charges.”

In August 2022, Energy Transfer was convicted of environmental crimes in Pennsylvania after entering a plea agreement. The charges stemmed from construction of the Mariner East II pipeline, which repeatedly contaminated lakes, rivers, and groundwater at 21 sites across the state. The company was also criminally charged for a devastating 2018 pipeline explosion outside of Pittsburgh.

The Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA) is the federal government’s primary enforcer of pipeline safety regulations, and the number of violations handed out to pipeline companies has plummeted since Trump took office. Piping highly flammable fossil fuels remains a risky business, and pipeline accidents have killed 57 people and sent 160 more to the hospital over the past five years alone, according to the Pipeline Safety Trust, a nonprofit watchdog group.

Kenneth Clarkson, communications director at the Pipeline Safety Trust, said the sudden decline in enforcement at PHMSA is concerning.

“In order to keep both our communities and environment safe from pipeline failures we need consistent and regular enforcement, not a substantial drop off,” Clarkson said in an email. “A slowdown in enforcement could lead to an increase in both the amount and severity of pipeline failures; and that’s something nobody wants to see happen.”

For example, in September 2024, an SUV crashed into an above-ground valve in a heavily industrialized but also residential area southwest of Houston, causing a gas liquids pipeline operated by Energy Transfer to explode. Nearly 1,000 homes were evacuated as towering flames shot into the air for hours on end. The company argues the incident was an unforeseen accident or criminal act for which Energy Transfer is not liable, but four people who live and work near the pipeline have sued the company for negligence.

Energy Transfer and its subsidiary, Sunoco Pipeline, are also under fire from residents of rural Bucks County, Pennsylvania, where an aging pipeline carrying jet fuel leaked for months and contaminated groundwater. The leak was discovered in January after some residents reported the smell of gas in their well water. On April 29, PHMSA ordered Energy Transfer to put in place corrective measures along the entire 105-mile Twin Oaks Pipeline system. However, Energy Transfer has yet to pay a fine for violating federal regulations as the enforcement case remains unresolved, according to PHMSA records.

Energy Transfer did not respond to a request for comment by the time this story was published. Calls to PHMSA went unanswered, and the voicemail box was full.

During an Energy and Commerce Committee hearing on the legislation to reauthorize funding for PHMSA on July 22, Ranking Member Rep. Frank Pallone Jr. (D-New Jersey) said pipeline safety risks remain prevalent but enforcement has “fallen off a cliff.” Nearly all of PHMSA top staff have left the agencyPallone said, and dozens of employees were either forced out or took paid leave as the Trump administration gutted federal agencies. PHMSA is now overhauling pipeline standards and enforcement to make the process more “cost-effective” for fossil fuel firms, but the agency has been slow to release updates on its rulemaking to the public, according to the Pipeline Safety Trust.

“It’s not because pipelines have somehow magically gotten safer since January 20,” Pallone saidreferring to the lack of regulation. “Instead, it’s because the Trump Administration is once again prioritizing profits for their favored industries over the safety of the American people.”

Pallone said the last funding reauthorization for PHMSA, which was signed by Trump during his first term, required the agency to issue a final rule for improving leak detection in gas pipelines, part of a larger effort to reduce climate-warming methane emissions. The final rule was released in the waning days of the Biden administration, but the Trump administration is not expected to implement regulations. Senate Democrats have introduced legislation to codify the rules into law.

“PHMSA has even ignored basic transparency requirements that it publish monthly updates on its progress on finalizing rules and regulations required by law,” Pallone said. “All of this is clear — the Trump Administration has no interest in following the law.”

Experts say enforcement actions at PHMSA may increase once the Senate votes on Trump’s nominee for administrator, Paul Robertiwho served as the agency’s general counsel during Trump’s first term. However, a legal challenge from Energy Transfer partners has called into question PHMSA’s entire enforcement mechanism.

Energy Transfer is challenging the $2.5 million fine levied by PHMSA after a worker was fatally struck by a device used to clean the Panhandle Eastern gas pipeline in Kansas. On January 27, one week after Trump took office, Energy Transfer’s Panhandle Eastern Pipe Line Co. filed a lawsuit in front a notoriously conservative judge in Texas, arguing that administrative enforcement hearings at PHMSA are unconstitutional and violate the sort of due process a company would enjoy in federal court under a jury trial.

In February, Trump’s Justice Department issued a memo declaring similar administrative enforcement systems to be unconstitutional. On April 22, PHMSA announced it would withdraw the $2.5 million fine against Energy Transfer and allow the Justice Department to pursue the civil enforcement in federal court.

Critics say the informal hearings on pipeline violations do not abide by the same rules of evidence as courtrooms, and energy companies are often frustrated by the lengthy process. However, the alternative to the agency’s in-house enforcement process are the federal courts, where disputes over safety and environmental violations could drag on for years and exhaust the dwindling resources at PHMSA. Experts say the agency simply does not have enough lawyers to take pipeline companies to court every time it attempts to enforce safety standards.

“We need PHMSA to be a strong regulator in order to prevent future tragedies and disasters from occurring,” Clarkson said.