As Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s (D-MA) profile was rising, she transferred her royalties earned from oil and gas to her children.
The Wall Street Journal editorial board used its latest editorial to remind readers that in 2011, Warren’s husband, Bruce Mann, sold his interest in “all of the oil, gas, and other minerals” throughout properties in Latimer and Pittsburg County in their home state of Oklahoma. The person who purchased the deed to was none other than Warren’s son Alexander. The effective transfer date of the royalties was two weeks before Warren announced her candidacy for senate in Massachusetts.
In 2014, the Journal reported, there were more transfers as Warren’s “political profile was rising.”
“‘We are on the cusp of a climate crisis,’ she told the Senate that March, ‘a point of no return that will threaten our health, our economy and our planet.’ Two months later, deeds dated May 19 say Ms. Warren conveyed to her two children, Alexander and Amelia, her mineral rights for lands in Okfuskee County and Hughes County, amid the Woodford shale field in the state’s southeast,” the Journal reported.
“One of those Hughes County parcels appears on oil-and-gas leases from June and July 2017, signed by Alexander and Amelia, along with Ms. Warren’s three brothers. The agreements allow exploration and drilling on an 80-acre plot in exchange for royalties on any potential output. The leases had an initial term of three years, so they would appear to remain in effect through this summer,” the outlet continued.
The Daily Caller’s Andrew Kerr reported in 2018 that one of the companies from which Warren obtained royalties had a history of environmental violations.
“Chesapeake has been hit with over $17 million in fines relating to environmental and leasing violations since 2007, the largest being a $3.2 million fine levied in 2013 after one of its subsidiary companies dumped unauthorized materials into dozens of streams and wetlands in West Virginia,” Kerr reported.
While there is absolutely nothing wrong with receiving royalties from oil and gas companies (and what Warren and her husband received was a mere few hundred dollars a year), it is interesting due to Warren’s stance on climate change and constant attacks against the oil and gas industry. It is especially interesting that she passed the royalties to her children at opportune moments in her political career.
“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,” the Journal noted.
Legal Insurrection suggested some reporter with access to the candidate should ask her about the transfers.
“Warren rails against oil and gas companies profiting from “pollution,” but it would appear she has no problem at all doing the same thing, even if it’s on a much smaller scale. Maybe a reporter should ask her at what financial point profiting from pollution becomes unacceptable? And in what way she thinks it acceptable for her to try to transfer “pollution” profits to her children just as she’s making a national name for herself as a green justice warrior?” the outlet asked.