Sludge reports the households of at least 28 U.S. senators—in both the Democratic and Republican caucuses—hold a combined minimum of $3.7 million and as much as $12.6 million in fossil fuel investments.

This week at the COP26 climate summit in Glasgow, Biden assured world leaders that the United States would meet its ambitious pledge to slash its greenhouse gas emissions in half by 2030.

For Biden to achieve that, he will need members of Congress to pass legislation to restrict fossil fuels, an industry in which dozens of senators and their households are personally invested.

Sludge has obtained information revealing that the households of at least 28 U.S. senators— both Democrats and Republicans—hold a combined minimum of $3.7 million and as much as $12.6 million in fossil fuel investments.

“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,” the report said.

“Five senators are invested in energy funds built around oil and gas assets, and three own nonpublic 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.” The report added.

The senators disclose their investments, or those of their spouses, to the Senate Office of Public Records, but details are presented in a very broad manner and often buried in hundreds of pages of paper forms.

Ironically, at least half a dozen of the senators who are personally invested in the fossil fuel industry sit on environment- or climate-related committees in the upper chamber.

The household of Senator Joe Manchin, who is the chairman of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, has received over $1 million in income from Enersystems, a coal brokerage firm the Democratic senator established in the 1980s.
Manchin “has stripped the Democrats’ budget reconciliation bill of major climate programs that would have transitioned coal-fired plants like the one where the company, now run by his son, holds a prime fuel services contract,” the report said.

Other senators whose households are heavily invested in fossil fuels include, John Hickenlooper of Colorado holds up to $1 million in investments in Chevron and other companies, Tom Carper of Delaware holds as much as $274,000 in Chevron and Duke Energy shares; Gary Peters of Michigan owns up to $355,000 in NextEra, DTE Energy, and Pacific Gas & Electric stock.

Earlier this year, Common Dreams reported that six Democratic senators—Manchin, Chris Coons (Del.), Maggie Hassan (N.H.), Mark Kelly (Ariz.), Kyrsten Sinema (Ariz.), and Jon Tester (Mont.)—have received hundreds of thousands of dollars in combined campaign contributions from fossil fuel corporations, some of which have touted their purported support for climate action, over the past decade.

The senators have often worked to remove any environmental or clean energy provisions from budget reconciliation legislation to protect their personal investments.

For months, Biden had made no secret of the fact that he wanted to participate in the COP26 climate talks with powerful measures signed into law to prove to the world that the United States was committed to his climate agenda.
However, Biden entered the talks without a convincing deal in hand to present at the UN summit as key components of his domestic climate agenda were frustrated due to powerful fossil fuel interests, fierce opposition from Republicans, and infighting among Democrats.

Scientists have warned that the stakes could not be higher and that failure at the Glasgow summit would hamper the world in its existential fight to limit the global temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius.

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“US sanctions on any country and in particular on Iran produce a chilling effect on all international transactions — even legal ones — with that country,” Senator Chris Coons, a Democratic member of the US Senators in Committee on Foreign Relations, wrote.

“This chilling effect is part of the reason why US sanctions can be effective, but it also compels us to be even more transparent and vocal about which transactions will violate our sanctions and which are permissible as the world battles a deadly pandemic. We believe articulating the exemptions to US sanctions clearly and often are important to maintaining international support for US sanctions on Iran while at the same time helping the Iranian people and the broader region fight COVID-19,” the letter further read.

In addition to Coons, the letter was signed by Sen. Bob Casey, and Reps. Dean Phillips, Jamie Raskin, and Rick Larsen.

The letter calls for alternative actions to help Iran in its fight against COVID-19.

Iran — the worst-hit state by the coronavirus spread in the Middle East — has been doing its utmost to contain the respiratory disease despite the hardships created by the US sanctions.

Iran’s Health Ministry spokesman said on Sunday that more than 44,000 coronavirus patients have recovered from the disease so far and have left the hospital.

Kianoosh Jahanpoor said the number of people tested positive for COVID-19 across the country has reached over 71,000.

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According To Iran News, A group of US Republican senators in a letter called on Twitter to ban the accounts of Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyed Ali Khamenei and Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif.

In the letter, sent to Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey on Thursday, senators Ted Cruz of Texas, Marco Rubio of Florida, Tom Cotton of Arkansas and Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee threatened that the company would be subject to US sanctions law if it did not end its service to the Iranian officials.

They argued that allowing Iran’s Leader and top diplomat to hold Twitter accounts violates an executive order by US President Donald Trump that prohibits Americans from providing goods and services to the Iranian statesmen.

“It is a sanctionable offense for ‘any person’ to have ‘provided … technological support for, or goods or services to persons designated pursuant to that EO,” the senators wrote, according to Press TV.

Twitter, they added, is aware of the accounts held by Ayatollah Khamenei and Zarif, and of their links to the Iranian government, but “continues to provide internet-based communications services.”

On June 24, 2019, Trump signed the executive order imposing sanctions on Iran’s Leader and top commanders of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC), saying the measure denies them “access to key financial resources and support.”

One week later, the US Treasury Department blacklisted Zarif — which it described as Iran’s “primary spokesperson around the world”.

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Republican Senators Lindsey Graham and Marsha Blackburn and Democrats Chris Van Hollen, Jeanne Shaheen and Richard Blumenthal wrote to US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo asking him to expedite a visa for the commander, General Mazloum Kobani, the Syrian Kurdish General.

“To say we are extremely concerned with the situation unfolding in northern Syria is an understatement,” they said in their letter, adding that it would benefit both Congress and President Donald Trump’s administration to hear from Kobani, Reuters reported.

Their request came hours after Trump announced that a ceasefire in northern Syria was now permanent and he lifted sanctions on Turkey as a result, rejecting criticism of his decision to pull out US troops that allowed Kurdish allies to come under attack from Turkey.

The lawmakers who sent the letter have been among the loudest voices in the US Congress lamenting Trump’s decision, which many see as abandoning Kurdish forces who fought for years alongside US troops in Syria.

For this reason US senator are worried about well being of Syrian Kurdish general.

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