Senators Cling to Fossil Fuel Stocks as World Heats Up

This week at the COP26 climate conference in Glasgow, President Biden assured world leaders that the United States would meet its pledge to cut its greenhouse gas emissions in half by 2030 compared with 2005 levels. 

But for Biden or a future president to get the U.S. to achieve that, they’ll almost certainly have to get legislation beyond the pared-down Build Back Better Act passed that restricts fossil fuels, an industry in which dozens of senators and their households are personally invested. The households of at least 28 U.S. senators own investments in the fossil fuel industry worth as much as a combined $12.6 million, according to Sludge’s analysis of financial disclosures.

The investments are valued at a combined minimum of $3.7 million and a maximum of $12.6 million, and many of them have been held by the lawmakers for at least three years. Of the 28 senators, at least 20 hold publicly-traded stocks in companies like oil supermajor Chevron, pipeline giant Enterprise Products, or electric utility NextEra that belong to trade associations that are lobbying Congress against taking up strong legislation to curb polluting emissions. Five senators are invested in energy funds built around oil and gas assets, and three own non-public stock in private fossil fuel companies. The investments, held by the senators, their spouse, jointly, or a dependent, are disclosed to the Senate Office of Public Records in very broad ranges and often buried in hundreds of pages of scanned paper forms, making a more precise count of their total value impossible.