{"id":309522,"date":"2021-09-13T10:07:57","date_gmt":"2021-09-13T10:07:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/jacobinmag.com\/2021\/09\/lauren-boebert-anti-climate-fossil-fuels-husband-jayson\/"},"modified":"2021-09-13T16:04:51","modified_gmt":"2021-09-13T16:04:51","slug":"lauren-boeberts-anti-climate-legislation-is-a-self-enrichment-scheme","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/2021\/09\/13\/lauren-boeberts-anti-climate-legislation-is-a-self-enrichment-scheme\/","title":{"rendered":"Lauren Boebert\u2019s Anti-Climate Legislation Is a Self-Enrichment Scheme"},"content":{"rendered":"\n \n\n\n\n

The Colorado Republican Lauren Boebert is spearheading amendments that could gut Democrats\u2019 climate bill \u2014 while also benefiting her husband\u2019s fossil fuel business.<\/h3>\n\n\n
\n \n
\n Congresswoman Lauren Boebert speaking at the 2021 Young Women\u2019s Leadership Conference, organized by Turning Point USA, in June 2021. (Gage Skidmore \/ Wikimedia Commons)\n <\/figcaption> \n<\/figure>\n\n\n\n\n \n

Republican firebrand Representative Lauren Boebert last week began spearheading a package of amendments that could both gut landmark climate legislation and enrich her husband\u2019s fossil fuel business.<\/p>\n

During the first markup of Democrats\u2019 reconciliation bill, the first-term Colorado congresswoman authored several initiatives designed to block higher fees for drilling on federal lands and for methane emissions.<\/p>\n

Terra Energy Partners, a Houston-based oil and gas company that drills on federal lands, paid Boebert\u2019s husband, Jayson, roughly $940,000 in 2019 and 2020 as a consultant, according to her latest financial\u00a0disclosure<\/a>\u00a0report. Boebert\u00a0failed to disclose<\/a>\u00a0her husband\u2019s 2019 work for Terra Energy Partners in her congressional financial disclosure\u00a0form<\/a>\u00a0filed last year.<\/p>\n

Last month, Terra Energy told the Colorado Sun<\/em><\/a> that Boebert\u2019s husband \u201chas provided contract drilling services as an on-site drilling foreman to Terra since 2017.\u201d<\/p>\n

Terra Energy has paid Jayson Boebert through a consulting company, Boebert Consulting. Lauren Boebert has her own ties to the company: She was\u00a0previously named<\/a>\u00a0as the registered agent of an LLC that is the current registered agent for Boebert Consulting in Colorado corporate records.<\/p>\n

Boebert\u2019s office did not respond to a request for comment about the amendments.<\/p>\n

As of last year, 134 members of Congress owned<\/a> up to $93 million of stock in fossil fuel corporations. Boebert\u2019s ties to the industry are among the most direct of any lawmaker in Congress.<\/p>\n\n \n\n \n \n \n

Leading the Assault on Climate Legislation<\/h2>\n \n

Since winning office in 2020, Boebert has\u00a0helped<\/a>\u00a0fossil fuel industry lobbyists push measures to weaken climate policy. Her latest amendments emerged in the House Natural Resources Committee, which is writing climate- and energy-related portions of Democrats\u2019 $3.5 trillion infrastructure reconciliation package.<\/p>\n

All of the amendments were voted down, but they could resurface when the infrastructure bill moves to the House floor and the Senate.<\/p>\n

One of Boebert\u2019s\u00a0amendments<\/a>\u00a0would have eliminated a provision of the legislation subjecting fossil fuel companies to new fees when their fracking operations emit methane.<\/p>\n

Boebert also introduced\u00a0three<\/a>\u00a0separate<\/a>\u00a0amendments<\/a> to block another part of the bill that would increase royalties on onshore oil and gas drilling on federal land from 12.5 to 20 percent, create new bonding requirements for oil and gas companies (ensuring they have money to clean up abandoned infrastructure in case of bankruptcy), and levy fines on companies that do not clean up abandoned wells.<\/p>\n\n \n \n \n

Amendments Coincide With Company\u2019s New Drilling Leases<\/h2>\n \n

Terra Energy operates some of its drilling operations on federal lands.<\/p>\n

In 2018, the company\u00a0pushed<\/a> to drill on public lands in western Colorado. In early September, the Bureau of Land Management approved new natural gas drilling leases<\/a> for the company on federal land in the area. The company and its subsidiaries own more than 5,500 natural gas wells<\/a>\u00a0in Boebert\u2019s district. Terra Energy ranks\u00a0fourth in total methane emissions<\/a> among US oil and gas companies.<\/p>\n

Earlier this year, Boebert\u00a0introduced legislation<\/a>\u00a0to reverse President Joe Biden\u2019s\u00a0executive order<\/a>\u00a0halting new leases for oil and gas drilling on federal land. Despite the moratorium on new leases, the administration has\u00a0approved<\/a> drilling permits\u00a0on already-leased public land at a faster rate than any president since George W. Bush.<\/p>\n

A federal judge\u00a0struck down<\/a>\u00a0Biden\u2019s leasing moratorium this summer, and while the administration is\u00a0appealing<\/a> the ruling, in the meantime, it has\u00a0reopened<\/a> the leasing process.<\/p>\n\n \n \n \n\n \n \n

You can subscribe to David Sirota\u2019s investigative journalism project, the Daily Poster<\/i>, here<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This post was originally published on Jacobin<\/a>. <\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Republican firebrand Representative Lauren Boebert last week began spearheading a package of amendments that could both gut landmark climate legislation and enrich her husband\u2019s fossil fuel business. During the first markup of Democrats\u2019 reconciliation bill, the first-term Colorado congresswoman authored several initiatives designed to block higher fees for drilling on federal lands and for methane [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1641,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/309522"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1641"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=309522"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/309522\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":309961,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/309522\/revisions\/309961"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=309522"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=309522"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=309522"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}