Elizabeth Warren Violated Her Own Fossil Fuel Purity Test

Elizabeth Warren Violated Her Own Fossil Fuel Purity Test

Just two weeks before Warren announced her Massachusetts Senate campaign, she and her husband sold some of their oil, gas, and mineral rights to Warren’s son, Alexander.

February 1, 2020
Elizabeth Warren Violated Her Own Fossil Fuel Purity Test

Throughout the entirety of the 2020 Democratic primary, Elizabeth Warren has railed against the oil and gas industry. If elected, she pledged to completely ban fracking on her first day in office, as well as issue a “total moratorium” on fossil fuel leases offshore and on federal lands.

But according to a new Wall Street Journal editorial, this is yet another example of Warren’s boundless hypocrisy.

The Wall Street Journal: “So it’s worth noting that, for years, she and her husband reported modest income from natural-gas royalties in her native state of Oklahoma. Ms. Warren’s financial disclosure filed with the Senate in 2012 included $504 of income from “gas well royalty interests” in Latimer County. The next year it was $203. Drill a little deeper and the facts get even more interesting.”

“But back when she was a Harvard law professor, Ms. Warren and her husband cashed those gas checks—or at least they did until the month before she launched her Senate campaign. Once she entered public life, they apparently unloaded the inconvenient assets by transferring them to children, who then endorsed an oil-and-gas lease that would be politically toxic if it carried Ms. Warren’s signature.”

Just two weeks before Warren announced her Massachusetts Senate campaign, she and her husband sold some of their oil, gas, and mineral rights to Warren’s son, Alexander. This continued in 2014 when Warren transferred additional mineral rights to Alexander and her daughter Amelia.

“The wells on some of these Latimer County lands date at least to the 1990s, when their output was much higher. For example, Mr. Mann’s 2011 mineral deed lists a parcel where state records show a well named Norman. Its production in 2009, per data from the Oklahoma Corporation Commission, was about 150,000 mcf (thousand cubic feet). In 1995 it was 3.9 million mcf. Did Mr. Mann have a stake in that gusher?”

Bottom line: Since Elizabeth Warren has only released 11 years of tax returns, there’s no telling how long she and her family have financially benefited from their natural gas royalties or what the total sum amounts to. Her proposed ban on fossil fuels would have a devastating impact on the economy, and voters deserve to have these questions answered.