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The president’s spectacular success on climate is in jeopardy because of Big Oil’s ongoing grip of our economy — and our democracy
On Monday, President Biden all but accused Big Oil of profiting off the blood and suffering of the Ukraine people. “Oil companies’ record profits today are not because of doing something new or innovative,” Biden said. “Their profits are a windfall of war, a windfall for the brutal conflict that’s ravaging Ukraine and hurting tens of millions of people around the globe.”
The president called on Big Oil CEOs to ramp up production and lower prices. “If they don’t, they’re going to pay a higher tax on their excess profits and face other restrictions,” Biden warned.
It was a nice bit of old-time economic populism, something the Democrats desperately need in the closing days of the mid-term election. But it also was a perfectly illustrated the election oil trap that has long crippled American politics.
The trap works something like this: For most Americans, the clearest indicator of inflation is the price of gas. So in order to keep the price of gas low, the basic law of supply and demand requires that there be plenty of oil. That means encouraging oil production. In the 1970s, that meant dealing with OPEC and Arab producers effort to control oil supply. But in today’s world, it’s more complicated, since a higher percent of our oil now comes from domestic sources, so increasing production means opening up more areas (onshore and off) to exploration and drilling. It’s also more complicated because it is very clear that burning oil is trashing the climate. And if we take that seriously, we need to radically accelerate the transition to clean energy and stop burning fossil fuels now.
Or, to put it in the bluntest possible way, you can’t have low oil prices and a stable climate. Which one is more important? It’s not just about the economy vs. the environment. It’s about your own welfare vs. the welfare of others. It’s about the value of the present vs. the value of the future.
With the passage of the Inflation Reduction Act, which channels $369 billion into clean energy and climate change programs over the next decade, Biden and the Democrats have arguably done more to address the climate crisis than any other administration in American history. But when it comes to taking on with Big Oil, Biden has been less sure-footed. “When gas prices first started going up, the White House confused the issue by trying to label it ‘Putin’s Price Hike,’ shifting the attention away from Big Oil,” wrote Jamie Henn, the Director of Fossil Free Media and an early advocate of a windfall profits tax. “They then tried to project an image of ‘working with’ the industry, meeting with oil CEOs and sending President Biden to fist-bump with the Saudi Crown Prince. When prices temporarily dipped this summer, the administration rushed to own the issue — not thinking about how when prices went back up, as they are now, they’d own that too.”
In effect, Biden has tried to have it both ways: fighting hard for clean energy and climate action, while at the same fighting hard to keep oil prices low and not piss off voters who see cheap, plentiful gas as a God-given right as Americans. Biden has tried to balance these two contradictory demands, but it’s a hard tightrope to walk.
For Big Oil, this is also a complex moment. Instead of investing more in exploration and production, as they have done in other boom times, they are pocketing billions. Why? The simplest explanation is greed: They are taking the money because that’s what capitalists do. Beyond that, however, many oil execs fear a recession is on the horizon, which could cut oil demand, end the boom, and send the industry into yet another bust (the oil and gas industry has been through a lot of them). But there is also the longer-term worry about future oil demand and whether new investments today become stranded assets in ten years. How fast is the rise of electric cars going to hurt oil demand? How fast will the adaptation of heat pumps kill the need for gas in people’s homes? The World Energy Outlook 2022, a respected 532-page report from the International Energy Agency, found that Putin’s war has “turbo-charged” the shift away from fossil fuels. The report predicts that global consumption of fossil fuels will peak within the next five years.
But restraining production, oil execs have found, has its virtues. Like more control of the market, for example. “Today, the pressure from shareholders to remain frugal is so strong and uniform across the industry that from the outside it almost looks like a cartel,” Bloomberg columnist Javier Blas wrote. And cartels, as every drug dealer knows, can set whatever price they want for their drugs (or oil). There’s no need to even pretend they capitalists who are operating in an open and fair market.
An oil cartel is nothing new. A hundred years ago, President Teddy Roosevelt had to go to the Supreme Court to bust up the Rockefeller oil empire. But back then, it was just about money.
Today, there’s a lot more at stake. And it’s not just the moral obscenity of profiting off the death and suffering in Ukraine. It is also the moral obscenity of profiting off the trashing of the climate and pushing life on Earth toward a sixth extinction while oil executives and shareholders bankroll their dividends and pour dark money into outside groups that shape elections. So far, nearly $1 billion has been spent by these groups in 2022 to boost Senate GOP candidates in the midterm election.
What can be done about it? An oil profits windfall tax, which is being pushed hard by Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) and other climate-savvy Democrats, has a lot of populist appeal. It would apply a 50 percent tax to the excess profits that the industry is making right now. The revenue raised — which could be upwards of $40 billion a year — would then be used to send a check to Americans who need help with high gas prices and energy bills. Taxpayers below the $70,000 a year income threshold could expect to receive around $240 based on current prices. This legislation might gain momentum if Democrats manage to hold on to the House and Senate, but Republicans will squash it like a bug against the windshield of an 18-wheeler if they take control of either chamber of congress after the election.
In fact, if Republicans win anything, you can expect a full-on restoration of Big Oil to the throne, as well as legislation that re-directs the flow of public and private money toward anyone and anything that can slow, stall, or divert the transition to clean energy. Like the MAGA crowd, Big Oil thrives on lies, chaos, disorder, and disruption. So expect lots of it. For Trumpers, burning fossil fuels is how you Make America Great Again. They will defend pipelines with guns and sweet-talk Putin and melt every glacier in Greenland if it means more cheap gas.
Ultimately, the only way out of the oil trap is to get off fossil fuels entirely. And the faster the better. Because as I fear we’re about to discover, our addiction to fossil fuels may eventually cost us a habitable planet, but first it may cost us our democracy.
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Republicans are favored to make gains with just five days to go until the midterm elections. (photo: Getty)
03 november 22
But those gains would be modest by the standards of midterm elections. In other words, according to the FiveThirtyEight forecast, this likely won’t be a “red-wave” election like 2010 (when Republicans picked up 63 House seats) or 2014 (when Republicans picked up nine Senate seats). Instead, it’s looking like more of a “red ripple.” But that doesn’t mean a red wave is impossible.
Our forecast emphasizes probabilities, not binary outcomes: Democrats and Republicans are only slightly favored to win many of those seats, and a seat with a 60-in-100 chance of going blue votes Republican 40 out of 100 times. As readers of FiveThirtyEight are undoubtedly aware, it’s not unusual for polls to be a few percentage points off the final mark (this is normal and just a reality of our uncertain world). Since 1998, polls of U.S. Senate elections conducted within three weeks of Election Day have had a weighted-average error of 5.4 percentage points, and polls of U.S. House elections have had a weighted-average error of 6.3 points.2
In the 2016 and 2020 elections, polls famously underestimated Republicans. If pollsters didn’t address the factors that caused this (which are still up for debate), that could happen again. On the other hand, our research has found that you can’t predict the direction of polling error in advance. Historically, polls have been equally likely to underestimate Republicans or Democrats. So it’s also possible that pollsters have fixed the problems that plagued them in 2016 and 2020 — maybe even overcorrected for them — and that the current polls are too good for the GOP. In other words, a wide range of scenarios is possible in this election: everything from a Republican landslide to a world where Democrats hold the House and gain seats in the Senate.
To illustrate this, let’s look at what would happen if there was a normal polling error in favor of either Republicans or Democrats. Of course, in real life, the polling error will be different in every race. But, hypothetically, let’s say that Republicans do 5.4 points better than their current FiveThirtyEight-projected vote margins in every Senate race and 6.3 points better in every House race. This roughly happened in 2020, when polls underestimated the GOP by a record amount. In this scenario, Republicans would win 54 Senate seats. Pennsylvania, Arizona and New Hampshire would fall to the GOP.
Pennsylvania, Arizona and New Hampshire aren’t safe for Dems
Senate seats where Democrats are favored in the FiveThirtyEight Deluxe forecast (as of Nov. 2 at 3 p.m. Eastern) but that they could lose in a hypothetical world where Republicans do 5.4 percentage points better in Senate races than FiveThirtyEight’s forecasted vote margin
Meanwhile, in the House, Republicans would win 259 seats in this hypothetical scenario — a 46-seat gain.3 Democrats would lose several districts that voted for President Biden by double digits, including New York’s 4th and California’s 9th, as well as several big-name incumbents, such as Reps. Marcy Kaptur, Katie Porter and Henry Cuellar. Even though no one is really talking about the possibility that Democrats will lose these seats, this list below shouldn’t be startling: Most of these districts have a less than 75-in-100 chance of going blue.
Lots of Democratic House seats are vulnerable
House seats where Democrats are favored in the FiveThirtyEight Deluxe forecast (as of Nov. 2 at 3 p.m. Eastern) but that they could lose in a hypothetical world where Republicans do 6.3 percentage points better in House races than FiveThirtyEight’s forecasted vote margin
But again, we shouldn’t discount the possibility that polls will underestimate Democrats. So what would the election results look like if Democrats did 5.4 points better than the FiveThirtyEight forecast currently predicts in every Senate race and 6.3 points better in every House race? In this scenario, it would be Democrats who win 54 Senate seats — the ones in which they are currently favored plus Georgia, Nevada, North Carolina, Ohio and Wisconsin.
A polling error could help Democrats gain Senate seats
Senate seats where Republicans are favored in the FiveThirtyEight Deluxe forecast (as of Nov. 2 at 3 p.m. Eastern) but that they could lose in a hypothetical world where Democrats do 5.4 percentage points better in Senate races than FiveThirtyEight’s forecasted vote margin
And in the House, Democrats would win 227 seats, while Republicans would win 208. In other words, Democrats would gain seats in the lower chamber, something the president’s party has done only twice since World War II. Those gains would include light-red seats like New York’s 1st and Ohio’s 13th.4 Some endangered Democratic incumbents (like Reps. Tom Malinowski and Tom O’Halleran) would also keep their seats.
Democrats could score surprise victories in the House
House seats where Republicans are favored in the FiveThirtyEight Deluxe forecast (as of Nov. 2 at 3 p.m. Eastern) but that they could lose in a hypothetical world where Democrats do 6.3 percentage points better in House races than FiveThirtyEight’s forecasted vote margin
To emphasize again, these are all hypothetical scenarios. If there is a pro-Republican or pro-Democratic polling error, it will almost surely unfold differently. Hopefully, though, this thought exercise has recalibrated your expectations. Of course, the polls could also be extremely accurate — as they were in the 2018 midterm. But you should be mentally prepared for something resembling the above scenarios too.
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Former Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan was wounded when his anti-government protest convoy came under attack in the east of Pakistan. (photo: AFP)
ALSO SEE: Pakistan's Ex-PM Imran Khan Was Shot: What, Where and Why?
Party official Asad Umar said Khan was wounded in the leg and was not seriously hurt. The identity of the attacker, who was arrested at the scene, was not immediately known.
No group has claimed responsibility for the shooting.
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Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro speaks during a news conference in Caracas Tuesday. His government has met with U.S. officials and this week, the Colombian president, in signs countries may be warming up to the authoritarian Venezuelan regime. (photo: Andrea Hernandez Briceno/Getty)
But none of this has worked. The military continues to back Maduro, who has kept Venezuela's economy (barely) afloat by selling oil to China and other allies. Support for Guaidó, who wields no real power, is waning with more countries reengaging with Maduro. Now, Russia's invasion of Ukraine and the ban on Russian oil imports is prompting the U.S. to seek new sources of energy.
For all these reasons, the Biden administration is extending a tentative olive branch to Venezuela.
How is the U.S. reaching out to Maduro?
The Biden administration has sent delegations to Caracas where the two sides negotiated a prisoner swap that freed seven Americans, including five oil executives. They also discussed easing U.S. sanctions, a move that could help U.S.-based Chevron expand its oil operations in Venezuela.
But before that can happen, the U.S. wants the Maduro regime to return to stalled negotiations in Mexico with Venezuela's political opposition. Its leaders are demanding democratic reforms that would open the door to free and fair Venezuelan presidential elections in 2024.
"We would like the release of political prisoners," Carlos Vecchio, the Venezuelan opposition's envoy to Washington, told NPR, speaking about his countrymen jailed in Venezuela. "We would like to see a date for the election. We would like to see free media and protection against human rights violations."
What's in it for Maduro regime?
Sanctions relief would help Venezuela rebuild its oil industry and allow its crude to start flowing to global markets again, including to the U.S., which used to be Venezuela's No. 1 buyer. Venezuela is home to the world's largest proven oil reserves and used to produce nearly 3 million barrels of oil per day. That figure dropped to just 534,000 in October, according to Reuters.
Jump-starting the oil sector would help revive Venezuela's moribund economy which — due to mostly to corruption and mismanagement — contracted by about two-thirds between 2014 and 2020. A growing economy, in turn, would boost Maduro should he run for president again in 2024.
Maduro "can use repression and fraud to stay in power. But I think he would far rather win a relatively clean election," said Phil Gunson, a senior analyst in Caracas for the International Crisis Group. "And he can't do that unless the economy is fixed or at least looks like it's moving in the right direction."
What's in it for the Biden administration?
Reengagement could convince Maduro to return to negotiations with the political opposition with the goal of free elections and a democratic transition.
Should that happen, a gradual lifting of sanctions could put more Venezuelan oil on the global market, a key goal amid the energy shock caused by Russia's invasion of Ukraine. U.S. reengagement could help blunt the growing influence of Russia and China in Venezuela.
Sanctions relief could, in turn, help improve Venezuela's economy and reduce the outflow of Venezuelan migrants. Under Maduro, more than 7 million people have fled Venezuela with many bound for the United States.
Meanwhile, Colombian President Gustavo Petro met Maduro in Caracas Tuesday and pledged to improve trade and security cooperation between the neighboring countries, in another sign of nations warming up to the regime.
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Lee is running to fill an open U.S. House seat near Pittsburgh. (photo: Summer Lee Campaign)
Aipac is spending millions to oppose Democrat who would be Pennsylvania’s first Black female member of Congress
The letter condemned the powerful American Israel Public Affairs Committee (Aipac) for its attempts to defeat Summer Lee, a candidate for the district that includes Pittsburgh, after failing to block her during the Democratic primaries earlier this year because of her criticisms of Israel’s oppression of the Palestinians.
The signatories said they were “outraged that at this critical moment in American history, Aipac has chosen to cast Democrats like Lee as extremists” while endorsing more than 100 Republican candidates who voted to overturn the 2020 presidential election.
The letter suggested that Aipac does not represent the views of the majority of American Jews and is working against their interests by also endorsing Republicans who promote white supremacy, a particularly sensitive issue in a city where 11 worshippers at the Tree of Life synagogues were murdered in an antisemitic attack four years ago.
“We also condemn Aipac endorsement of lawmakers who have promoted the antisemitic ‘Great Replacement’ conspiracy theory that helped inspire the murder of eleven members of the three synagogues housed at Tree of Life,” the letter said.
“Clearly, their definition of ‘extreme’ is completely opposite to that held by the majority of American Jews – who worry about the stark rise in antisemitism and white nationalism in our state and in our country.”
It is the first time Aipac has funded support for a Republican contender for Congress over a Democrat in a general election, marking a further shift away from its once more bipartisan approach.
Aipac’s campaign funding arm, the United Democracy Project (UDP), is paying hundreds of thousands of dollars for television advertising and mailings against Lee. The group is backing Mike Doyle, who supports a federal ban on abortion and has described himself as very conservative.
The UDP has posted a leaflet to voters calling Lee “too extreme” because of her positions on police, prison and immigration reform. The leaflet makes no mention of her criticisms of Israeli government policies which do not appear to be an election issue for most voters, although Aipac has previously said that its “sole factor for supporting Democratic and Republican candidates is their support for strengthening the US-Israel relationship”.
Lee has drawn Aipac’s fire for her support of setting conditions for the US’s considerable aid to Israel, for accusing Israel of “atrocities” in Gaza, and for drawing parallels between Israeli actions against Palestinians and the shooting of young black men in the US.
In a tweet earlier this week, Lee accused Aipac of funding extremists: “8 days from making history in PA–where Black women have never had federal representation–Aipac is funding my extreme GOP opponent. Since endorsing 100+ insurrectionists, Aipac has repeatedly shown us that democracy has never been as important as keeping progressives out.”
Lee’s campaign has an additional cause for concern because her Republican opponent has the same first and last name as the outgoing Democratic member of Congress she is seeking to replace. In an apparent attempt to exploit potential confusion, Doyle’s website does not mention that he is a Republican.
Aipac’s campaign against Lee is a rematch after it tried and failed to block her during the Democratic primaries earlier this year.
The UDP spent more than $25m in the primaries to defeat candidates it deemed too critical, or insufficiently supportive, of Israel, including about $2.6m against Lee. Most of the candidates opposed by Aipac lost but Lee won her race by a slim margin.
Much of the advertising in support of Aipac-backed candidates in the primaries played up Democratic party values such as equality. One of those opposed by the lobby group, Congressman Andy Levin who lost his primary and seat, on Wednesday tweeted that Aipac’s opposition to Lee revealed its professed support for liberal values to have been a sham.
“If it wasn’t clear before, it certainly is now: AIPAC doesn’t care about our party’s values and priorities and it’s willing to empower extremists and undermine American democracy in order to defeat principled, progressive candidates,” he wrote.
One of those who initiated the letter from members of Pittsburgh’s Jewish community was Ritchie Tabachnick who sits on the steering committee of a more moderate pro-Israel organisation, J Street. Tabachnick said the letter speaks for the majority of the city’s Jews because they are disturbed at Aipac “supporting some of the most extreme Republicans, people who make openly antisemitic remarks promote antisemitic conspiracy theories”.
“It’s quite possible to be pro-Israel and antisemitic. They often go hand in hand. Aipac have chosen to prioritise the-pro Israel and ignore the antisemitic elements that go with it,” he said.
Tabachnick said he believed Aipac was attempting to shut down widening criticism of Israel in the US, a task made more urgent by the expected return of Benjamin Netanyahu as prime minister in coalition with far-right Jewish nationalists.
“They are trying to control the narrative,” he said.
But Tabachnik said he does not believe Aipac represents the views of most of the US’s Jewish community.
“They are a loud, politically smart minority,” he said of the group.
Aipac denies taking sides against the Democrats, saying that Lee’s views put her “outside of the Democratic mainstream”.
Aipac has been approached for comment.
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Then-Representative Brian Baird (D-WA) gestures to a diagram of how congressional inside trading works during a news conference on Capitol Hill, May 16, 2007, in Washington, D.C. (photo: Brendan Smialowski/Getty)
Congress passed the law a decade ago to combat insider trading and conflicts of interest among their own members and force lawmakers to be more transparent about their personal financial dealings. A key provision of the law mandates that lawmakers publicly — and quickly — disclose any stock trade made by themselves, a spouse, or a dependent child.
But many members of Congress have not fully complied with the law. They offer excuses including ignorance of the law, clerical errors, and mistakes by an accountant. Insider has chronicled this widespread nature of this phenomenon in "Conflicted Congress," an ongoing reporting project initially published in December.
While lawmakers who violate the STOCK Act face a fine, the penalty is usually small — $200 is the standard amount — or waived by House or Senate ethics officials. Ethics watchdogs and even some members of Congress have called for stricter penalties or even a ban on federal lawmakers from trading individual stocks.
On Capitol Hill, lawmakers are now seriously debating such a ban, with a vote on a consensus bill possible for November — after midterm elections.
Here are the lawmakers discovered to have recently violated the STOCK Act — to one extent or another:
Sen. Dianne Feinstein, a Democrat from California
Feinstein was months late disclosing a five-figure investment her husband made into a private, youth-focused polling company.
Sen. Tommy Tuberville, a Republican from Alabama
Tuberville was weeks or months late in disclosing nearly 130 separate stock trades from January to May.
Sen. Roger Marshall, a Republican from Kansas
Marshall was up to 17 months late disclosing stock trades for one of his dependent children.
Sen. John Hickenlooper, a Democrat from Colorado
In May 2020, Hickenlooper was months — and in two cases, more than a year — late in disclosing five separate stock trades for himself or his wife that, taken together, are worth between $565,000 and $1.3 million, nonprofit news organization Sludge reported.
Then, in June, Hickenlooper failed to disclose purchases of varying classes of stock from by his wife. They include shares of Liberty Media Corporation, Qurate Retail, and Liberty Broadband Corporation in 2021 and early 2022. The stocks were valued between $516,006 and $1.2 million. Hickenlooper was also late in reporting that his wife sold between $130,004 and $300,000 worth of stock in Liberty Media Corporation and Liberty Broadband Corporation from March 2022.
Sen. Rand Paul, a Republican from Kentucky
Paul was 16 months late in disclosing that his wife bought stock in a biopharmaceutical company that manufactures an antiviral COVID-19 treatment, the Washington Post reported.
Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, a Democrat from Rhode Island
Whitehouse was a couple days late disclosing January 2022 purchases of Target Corporation and Tesla Inc. stock, each valued at between $15,001 and $50,000.
Sen. Rick Scott, a Republican from Florida
Scott on August 15, 2022, reported that he and his wife sold up to $450,000 in stock in Emida Corporation in September 2021 — months after a federal reporting deadline.
Sen. Tom Carper, a Democrat from Delaware
Carper was about four months late disclosing his wife's sale of stock in a gold mining company.
Sen. Bill Hagerty, a Republican from Tennessee
Hagerty was months late disclosing stock trades on behalf of his dependent children.
Sen. Cynthia Lummis, a Republican from Wyoming
Lummis was several days late reporting a purchase in August of up to $100,000 in bitcoin, CNBC reported.
Sen. Gary Peters, a Democrat from Michigan
Peters was months late disclosing a purchase of up to $15,000 worth of stock in FS KKR Capital Corp., which manages business development companies, nonprofit news organization Sludge reported.
Sen. Mark Kelly, a Democrat from Arizona
Kelly, a retired astronaut, failed to disclose on time his exercising of a stock option on an investment in a company that's developing a supersonic passenger aircraft, Fox Business reported.
Rep. Tom Malinowski, a Democrat from New Jersey
Malinowski failed to disclose dozens of stock trades made during 2020 and early 2021, doing so only after questions from Insider.
The independent Office of Congressional Ethics, in part citing Insider's reporting, found "substantial reason to believe" that Malinowski violated federal rules or laws designed to promote transparency and defend against conflicts. It voted 5-1 to refer its findings to the Democrat-led House Committee on Ethics, which confirmed on October 21 that it will continue reviewing the matter.
Rep. Pat Fallon, a Republican from Texas
Fallon was months late disclosing dozens of stock trades during early- and mid-2021 that together are worth as much as $17.53 million. Fallon was late again in December 2021 disclosing stock trades.
Rep. Diana Harshbarger, a Republican from Tennessee
In 2021, Harshbarger failed to properly disclose more than 700 stock trades that together are worth as much as $10.9 million.
Rep. Susie Lee, a Democrat of Nevada
Lee failed to properly disclose more than 200 stock trades between early-2020 and mid-2021. Together, the trades are worth as much as $3.3 million.
Separately, Lee and her husband traded eight stocks during 2021 that Lee did not report until August 13, 2022.
Rep. Madison Cawthorn, a Republican from North Carolina
Cawthorn was months late in May 2022 when disclosing hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of purchases and sales of two cryptocurrencies: ethereum and Let's Go Brandon Coin, the latter referencing an anti-Joe Bien slogan.
Then, in June 2022, he was again months late in disclosing two-dozen additional cryptocurrency trades.
Rep. Katherine Clark, a Democrat from Massachusetts
Clark, one of the highest-ranking Democrats in the House, was several weeks late in disclosing 19 of her husband's stock transactions. Together, the trades are worth as much as $285,000. She has since stopped trading stocks.
Rep. Blake Moore, a Republican from Utah
Moore in early- to mid-2021 did not properly disclose dozens of stock and stock-option trades together worth as much as $1.1 million. He was late again disclosing trades made in August.
On June 7, 2022, Moore established a qualified blind trust, formally ceding control of his investments to an independent trustee.
Rep. Jamie Raskin, a Democrat from Maryland
Raskin failed to disclose on three annual congressional financial reports that his wife, Sarah Bloom Raskin, held stock in Reserve Trust. He then didn't disclose that she sold the stock, valued at $1.5 million, until months after a federal deadline for doing so. In early 2022, Raskin explained that sale disclosure delay occurred following his son's death.
Then, in June 2022, Raskin was again late disclosing stock trades. This time, it involved an exchange of stocks his wife received when I(X) Investments merged with Net Zero — a trade valued at between $250,001 and $500,000.
Rep. Mo Brooks, a Republican from Alabama
Brooks, a US House member who ran for a US Senate in 2022 but lost in a primary, failed to properly disclose a sale of Pfizer stock worth up to $50,000.
Rep. Lauren Boebert, a Republican from Colorado
Boebert failed for months to disclose between $5,000 and $80,000 worth of transactions, made in 2021, involving various stocks, cryptocurrency, and brokerage funds that belong to her husband, the Colorado Sun reported.
Rep. Dan Crenshaw, a Republican from Texas
Crenshaw was months late disclosing several stock trades he made in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Daily Beast reported.
Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, a Democrat from Florida
Wasserman Schultz was months late reporting four stock trades made either for herself or her child.
Rep. Alan Lowenthal, a Democrat from California
Lowenthal was late disclosing his wife's purchase of a corporate bond in cloud computing and technology company VMWare, worth between $15,001 and $50,000, Forbes reported. "We have no comment," Lowenthal spokesman Keith Higginbotham told Insider on November 18.
In June, Lowenthal violated the STOCK Act again when he was months late disclosing four stock or corporate bond trades.
Then, in October, Lowenthal violated the STOCK Act for a third time when he was several weeks late disclosing the sale of Citigroup Inc. corporate bonds.
Lowenthal's office did not respond to several Insider messages about the second and third STOCK Act violations.
Rep. Brian Mast, a Republican from Florida
Mast was late disclosing that he had purchased up to $100,000 in stock in an aerospace company. The president of the company had just testified before a congressional subcommittee on which Mast sits.
Separately, Mast sold stock worth up to $50,000 in Ideal Power, a company that develops power switches for electric vehicles and other machinery, in February 2021. But he didn't properly report the sale to the US House of Representatives until August 12, 2022 — about a year-and-a-half after a federal deadline.
And in October 2022, Mast was more than a year late disclosing an exchange of his shares in Aphria, Inc., for shares of Tilray Brands, Inc.
Brad Stewart, Mast's deputy chief of staff, told Insider "this was an exchange trade that occurred automatically when two companies merged. Congressman Mast did not initiate the trade. It was reflected on his financial disclosure, but a periodic transaction report was not filed because he did not initiate a trade. When this was discovered, it was immediately filed. "
Rep. Kathy Manning, a Democrat from North Carolina
Manning and her husband were late — sometimes by months — disclosing several dozen stock trades made in 2021 that together were worth up to $1.25 million, according to nonprofit news organization Sludge.
Rep. Mikie Sherrill, a Democrat from New Jersey
Sherrill was months late disclosing two sales of vested stock her husband earned as part of his employment. The trades were worth up to $350,000 and Sherrill paid a $400 late fee.
Rep. Kevin Hern, a Republican from Oklahoma
Hern did not disclose nearly two-dozen stock trades in a timely manner, in violation of the STOCK Act. Taken together, the trades are worth as much as $2.7 million.
Rep. Brad Schneider, a Democrat from Illinois
In mid-2022, Schneider was about two months late disclosing two stock trades involving a pet insurance company.
Separately, Schneider's wife sold up to $150,000 worth of Trupanion stock in February and December of 2021. But Schneider did not report the trades until August 13.
Rep. Michael Guest, a Republican from Mississippi
Guest was more than eight months late disclosing trades in the stock of two oil companies held by a family trust benefitting his wife.
Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney, a Democrat from New York
Maloney was months late in disclosing he sold eight stocks he inherited in mid-2020 when his mother died.
Rep. Lori Trahan, a Democrat from Massachusetts
Trahan was months late disclosing the sale of stock shares in a software company.
Rep. Mary Gay Scanlon, a Democrat from Pennsylvania
Scanlon's husband sold four stocks in February 2021 collectively worth up to $95,000 and exchanged up to $15,000 in shares of DuPont de Nemours early that same month, according to a disclosure she filed August 12, 2022 — almost a year-and-a-half after the fact.
In a separate disclosure filed August 26, 2022, Scanlon was months late reporting an exchange in shares of Exelon Corporation, a power generation company, that she jointly owned with her husband.
Rep. John Rutherford, a Republican from Florida
Rutherford failed to properly disclose five individual stock transactions he made in late 2020.
Rep. Josh Gottheimer, a Democrat from New Jersey
Gottheimer and his wife exchanged up to $15,000 worth of stock in Independent Bank Corp. in November 2021, but waited until August 2022 to report it.
Rep. Mark Green, a Republican from Tennessee
Green was about two weeks late disclosing the June 2022 purchase of an energy stock valued at up to $250,000.
Rep. David Trone, a Democrat from Maryland
Trone was months late reporting several stocks and structured notes that together are worth well into the hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Rep. Carol Miller, a Republican from West Virginia
In September 2022, Miller was months late disclosing hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of stock trades made the year before by her husband. The trades included stock in a COVID-19 vaccine maker and a pair of defense contractors.
Rep. Pete Sessions, a Republican from Texas
Sessions was a month late in reporting a purchase of stock in Amazon.com he made during August 2021. Separately, in early 2022, Sessions was late disclosing seven trades he made in late 2021. Sessions has been an outspoken advocate of allowing members of Congress to trade individual stocks.
Rep. Tom Suozzi, a Democrat from New York
Suozzi failed to file required reports on about 300 financial transactions, NPR reported, citing research from the Campaign Legal Center. In March 2022, Suozzi disclosed more than 30 stock trades months or years past a federal deadline, Insider reported. In May 2022, he disclosed 10 more stock trades weeks past the federal deadline for doing so.
Rep. Dan Meuser, a Republican from Pennsylvania
Meuser was about one year late disclosing hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of stock purchases his wife and children made during March 2020, LegiStorm reported.
Rep. Maria Elvira Salazar, a Republican from Florida
Salazar was weeks late disclosing a health care company stock share exchange valued at between $250,001 and $500,000.
The freshman congresswoman had sharply criticized her predecessor, former Rep. Donna Shalala, for her own STOCK Act-related troubles.
Rep. Vicente Gonzalez, a Democrat from Texas
Gonzalez was nearly a year late in disclosing a sale of up to $15,000 worth of mining company stock.
Rep. Kathy Castor, a Democrat of Florida
Castor was late disclosing the purchase of tens of thousands of dollars worth of stock shares throughout 2021.
Rep. Bill Pascrell, a Democrat of New Jersey
Pascrell was overdue reporting stock trades he made in December 2019 in General Electric and in August 2019 in pharmaceutical company Johnson … Johnson.
Rep. August Pfluger, a Republican from Texas
Pfluger was several months late disclosing numerous stock purchases or sales made in January or March either by himself or by his wife.
Rep. Brian Higgins, a Democrat from New York
Higgins was about 11 months late disclosing three stock trades he made in late 2020.
Rep. Cheri Bustos, a Democrat from Illinois
Bustos was months late in disclosing that she had sold up to $150,000 worth of stocks in March.
Rep. Steve Chabot, a Republican from Ohio
Chabot was months late disclosing a stock share exchange he held in early 2021.
Rep. Victoria Spartz, a Republican from Indiana
Spartz was two weeks late disclosing a purchase of up to $50,000 worth of stock in a commercial real-estate firm.
Rep. Rick Allen, a Republican from Georgia
Allen, a four-term Republican who represents a large southeastern region of Georgia, appears to have improperly disclosed the purchases and sales of several stocks during 2019 and 2020.
Rep. Kim Schrier, a Democrat from Washington
Schrier was more than two months late disclosing that her husband purchased up to $1 million in Apple Inc. stock, Sludge and Forbes reported. Schrier's office told Insider that the congresswoman was initially unaware of the transaction.
Rep. Kurt Schrader, a Democrat from Oregon
Schrader failed to disclose two stock trades from December 2021 on time.
Rep. Mike Kelly, a Republican from Pennsylvania
Kelly was more than seven weeks late reporting a stock purchase made by his wife.
Rep. Chris Jacobs, a Republican from New York
Jacobs was months late filing various transactions made throughout early- to mid-2021, Forbes reported. Then, in September 2022, Jacobs was late disclosing a series of separate trades he made earlier that summer.
Rep. Bill Keating, a Democrat from Massachusetts
Keating was days late disclosing a pair of stock trades he made in September 2022.
Rep. Bobby Scott, a Democrat from Virginia
Scott was months late in disclosing a pair of stock sales from December 2020, Forbes reported. NPR also reported several other late transactions, as first identified by the nonpartisan Campaign Legal Center.
Rep. Austin Scott, a Republican from Georgia
Scott, a Republican from Georgia, was a week late reporting a handful of transactions conducted by his spouse.
Rep. Ed Perlmutter, a Democrat from Colorado
Perlmutter ran a few days late in filing disclosures for as much as $30,000 in stock trades his wife made in June 2021.
In September 2022, Perlmutter was again late disclosing one of his wife's stock trades.
Dwight Evans, a Democrat from Pennsylvania
Evans in December 2021 failed to properly disclose a sale of up to $15,000 worth of stock in American Electric Power Co. Inc.
Rep. Lloyd Doggett, a Democrat from Texas
Doggett was days late disclosing purchases of four stocks — he said they were automated dividend reinvestments of existing stock holdings — that he made in September 2022.
Rep. Warren Davidson, a Republican from Ohio
Davidson didn't properly disclose the sale of stock worth up to $100,000, reported NPR, citing Campaign Legal Center research.
Rep. Lance Gooden, a Republican from Texas
Gooden failed to file mandatory periodic transaction reports for a dozen stock transactions, per the STOCK Act, reported NPR, citing Campaign Legal Center research. Gooden's office disputed to the Dallas Morning News that the lawmaker did anything wrong.
Rep. Chuck Fleischmann, a Republican from Tennessee
Fleischmann, a Republican from Tennessee, was late in disclosing a pair of stock transactions together worth up to $30,000.
Rep. Michael Burgess, a Republican from Texas
In December 2021, Burgess failed to disclose on time the sale of 100 stock shares in health insurer Cigna Corp.
Rep. Cindy Axne, a Democrat from Iowa
During 2019 and 2020, Axne didn't file required periodic transaction reports for more than three-dozen trades, reported NPR, citing research by the Campaign Legal Center.
Del. Michael San Nicolas, a Democrat from Guam
San Nicolas did not properly disclose two trades — one in 2019 and another in 2020, reported NPR, citing Campaign Legal Center research.
Rep. Peter Welch, a Democrat from Vermont
Welch, an outspoken environmentalist, was late disclosing the sale of his wife's ExxonMobil stock. In December, Welch's office told Insider that the congressman and his wife would both stop trading individual stocks.
Rep. Jim Banks, a Republican from Indiana
Banks was a week late reporting a handful of stock transactions.
Rep. Mike Garcia, a Republican from California
Garcia was late disclosing several stock trades he made in mid-2020, as first reported by the American Independent.
Rep. Rob Wittman, a Republican from Virginia
Wittman was a few days late in disclosing four of his stock transactions that included pharmaceutical company Johnson … Johnson.
Rep. Jim Hagedorn, a Republican from Minnesota
Hagedorn was more than three months late disclosing the sale of stock in a company that makes colon cancer-screening products. Hagedorn died in February 2022.
Rep. Roger Williams, a Republican from Texas
Williams did not properly report three stock transactions his wife made in 2019, reported NPR, citing Campaign Legal Center research.
READ MORE
Report sponsored by some of the largest food and farming businesses finds pace of shift to sustainable practices is too slow. (photo: AP)
Report sponsored by some of the largest food and farming businesses finds pace of shift to sustainable practices too slow
The report, from a taskforce within the Sustainable Markets Initiative (SMI), a network of global CEOs focused on climate issues established by King Charles III, is being released days before the start of the United Nation’s Cop27 climate summit in Egypt.
Many of the world’s largest food and agricultural businesses have championed sustainable agricultural practices in recent years. Regenerative farming practices, which prioritize cutting greenhouse gas emissions, soil health and water conservation, now cover 15% of croplands.
But the pace of change has been “far too slow”, the report finds, and must triple by 2030 for the world to have any chance of keeping temperature rises under 1.5C, a level that if breached, scientists argue, will unleash even more devastating climate change on the planet.
The report is signed by Bayer, Mars, McCain Foods, McDonald’s, Mondēlez, Olam, PepsiCo, Waitrose and others. They represent a potent political and corporate force, affecting the food supply chain around the world. They are also, according to critics, some of those most responsible for climate mismanagement with one calling the report “smoke and mirrors” and unlikely to address the real crisis.
Food production is responsible for a third of all planet-heating gases emitted by human activity and a number of the signatories have been accused of environmental misdeeds and “greenwashing”. Activist Greta Thunberg is boycotting Cop this year having called the global summit a PR stunt “for leaders and people in power to get attention”.
“We are at a critical tipping point where something must be done,” said the taskforce chair and outgoing Mars CEO, Grant Reid. “The interconnection between human health and planetary health is more evident than ever before.” Big food companies and agriculture must play a big part in changing that, said Reid. “It won’t be easy but we have got to make it work,” he said.
Agriculture is the world’s largest industry. Pasture and cropland occupy around 50% of the planet’s habitable land and uses about 70% of fresh water supplies. The climate crisis is challenging the industry across the world but the group’s call for change comes as the industry – which employs 1 billion people – is facing supply chain issues in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic and soaring inflation. It also comes amid mounting skepticism about promises to change from companies that have contributed to climate change.
These current issues must not detract from the need for change, the report argues. “With the inflationary environment and widespread supply chain disruption, it would be easy to reduce our focus on the longer-term challenge of scaling regenerative farming. But we believe it’s vital we maintain a sense of urgency. We must take action now to avoid more acute crises in the future,” its authors write.
Sunny George Verghese, chief executive of Olam, one of the world’s largest suppliers of cocoa beans, coffee, cotton and rice, said: “We cannot continue to produce and consume food and feed and fiber in the way we are doing today unless we don’t mind destroying the planet.
“The only way out for us is how we transition to a more resilient food system that will allow us to meet the needs of a growing population without the resource intensity we have today.”
The report studied three food crops, potatoes, rice and wheat, and has made policy recommendations it will present at Cop27.
The taskforce’s members are working to make the short-term economic case for change more attractive to farmers. “It’s just not compelling enough for the average farmer,” said Reid. More widely the report argues industry and government must also work harder to address the knowledge gap and make sure farmers are following best practices. Third, all parties involved in the agriculture industry from farmers to food producers to government, banks and insurers need to align behind encouraging a shift to more sustainable practices.
“It involves change for all the players including the government, private, public companies and others. No one player can do this on their own, this has to be a collaboration of the willing. What needs to happen now is action and delivery,” said Reid.
Over the next six months, the group will assess how they can spread the taskforce’s work with the aim of establishing a common set of metrics for measuring environmental outcomes, establishing a credible system of payments for farmers for environmental outcomes, easing the cost of farmers transitioning to sustainable practices, ensuring government policy rewards farmers for greening their business and encouraging the sourcing of crops from particular areas converting to regenerative farming.
Devlin Kuyek, a researcher at Grain, a non-profit organization that works to support small farmers, said it was increasingly difficult for big agricultural and food companies to ignore climate change. “But I don’t think any of these companies – say a McDonald’s – has any commitment to curtail the sales of highly polluting products. I don’t think PepsiCo is going to say the world doesn’t need Pepsi.”
Kuyek pointed out that Yara, another signatory to the report, is the world’s largest supplier of nitrogen-based fertilizers, “which are responsible for one out of every 40 tonnes of greenhouse gas emitted annually”.
“It’s pretty disingenuous,” said Kuyek. “Small, local food systems still feed most of the people on the planet and the real threat is that the industrial system is expanding at the expense of the truly sustainable system. Corporations are creating a bit of smoke and mirrors here, suggesting they are part of the solution when inevitably they are part of the problem.”
Considering the controversial histories of some of the companies involved in the report, Verghese said he expected criticism and scrutiny. “All companies have to stand up to the scrutiny of being attacked if there is real greenwashing. There is no place to hide,” he said. “As far as Olam is concerned we are very clear on our targets, we have had the confidence to make these targets public. All of us have progressed along the sustainable journey. It is not that we have not made mistakes in the past but as we have become better at this we are willing to be subject to scrutiny.”
Both Reid and Verghese said the scale of the issues the world’s food supply is facing cannot be underplayed but that more governments and companies were becoming convinced of the need for urgent change. “I believe change can be made,” said Verghese. “I am optimistic. The fact that these kinds of coalitions are emerging is very positive. We are all otherwise very strong rivals and competitors. We hate each other’s guts, we don’t come together on anything unless there is a huge crisis. Everyone is recognizing there is a huge crisis. We need to come together.”
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