Please leave this field empty
Donate Monthly Make a Gift Renew Your Membership Ways to Give
Food & Water Watch Food & Water Watch Food & Water Watch
  • About
  • Problems
  • Campaigns
  • Impacts
  • Research
  • Contact
Donate Monthly Make a Gift Renew Your Membership Ways to Give
  • facebook
  • twitter
Please leave this field empty
Food & Water Watch Food & Water Watch
$
Menu
  • About
  • News
  • Research Library
  • Contact
  • Careers
  • Donate
Search
Please leave this field empty
  • facebook
  • twitter

Sessions Led Deregulation of Fracking... And Then Profited From It

Sessions held a large investment in the Alabama oil and gas company Energen the same year he introduced legislation to exempt its fracking activities from federal regulations.

  • facebook
  • twitter
  • google-plus
  • envelope

We all need safe food and clean water.

Donate
Jeff Sessions
01.10.17

Today, Alabama Senator Jeff Sessions will begin his nomination hearing in the Senate Judiciary Committee to become the next U.S. Attorney General. By now, most people have heard that he was rejected for a federal judgeship thirty years ago for being a racist. His positions against voting rights have also been widely reported.

Last month, Steve Horn at DeSmog published a fascinating story revealing that Sessions introduced the first bill to try to exempt fracking companies from regulation under the Safe Drinking Water Act. We looked a bit more at what Sessions was up to, and found that that same year — in 1999 —his wife held big investments in the oil and gas company leading the fracking charge in Alabama.

Take Action

DeSmog reported that during Sessions’ first term as senator, he was the sole co-sponsor of the original Halliburton Loophole bill, introduced in March 1999 by fellow climate science denier Senator James Inhofe.

The bill, which was folded into the Energy Policy Act of 2005, would ultimately exempt underground injections of fracking fluids from regulation under the Safe Drinking Water Act. DeSmog uncovered that this was done with strong backing from the Interstate Oil & Gas Compact Commission, and it stemmed from controversy surrounding the practice in Sessions’ home state.

From the late 1980s through the 1990s, coal beds in Alabama were being fracked for natural gas. After residents complained of impacts to their drinking water, they petitioned the EPA to enforce its regulations of fracking injections under the Safe Drinking Water Act. Under the Clinton Administration, the EPA refused to reconsider approval of what Alabama underground injections regulators were doing on fracking: looking the other way. (For more on this history, read Steve Horn’s piece on DeSmog and this 2002 U.S. Supreme Court decision.)

Building off of the DeSmog story, we’ve discovered that when Senator Jeff Sessions introduced the original Halliburton Loophole, he and his wife had sizable stakes in Energen, the Alabama-based oil and gas company that pioneered fracking in the state.

In 1995, as Sessions was running for his senate seat, his wife held between $1,001-$15,000 in Energen stock. They reported the same for 1996. In 1997 and 1998, the same range in value was posted as jointly owned. But in 1999 — the year Inhofe and Sessions introduced the bill to exempt Energen’s and other fracking operations from regulation under the Safe Drinking Water Act — the senator reported that his wife had separately acquired through inheritance an additional stake in Energen, valued at $15,000-$50,000.

By 2008, they had cashed out in a profitable way — after averaging about $10 a share in 1999, Energen stock hit a yearlong high of $78 a share in May of 2008.

Senator Sessions’ legislative efforts in 1999 would have directly benefited Energen, at the same time he and his wife held large investments in the oil and gas company. And when Sessions ran for reelection in 2002, Energen gave $5,000 to his campaign. This episode speaks volumes about his ethics and judgment, to say nothing of his priorities.

Today, in related news, the Washington Post revealed that Senator Sessions has failed, in preparation for his confirmation hearings, to disclose the oil and gas mineral rights that he owns on more than 600 acres of land, some of which is beneath public lands.

Take action now to demand that your senators oppose the nomination of Jeff Sessions as our country’s next Attorney General.

Take Action

Related Links

  • Corporate States of America: Industry Ties to Trump's Cabinet Nominations
  • The Fracking Influence Pipeline: Trump’s Cabinet Nominees
Printer-friendly versionPrinter-friendly version

Monsanto's Roundup is a "probable human carcinogen." We need to ban it!

Get the latest on your food and water with news, research and urgent actions.

Please leave this field empty

Latest News

  • BLUE COMMUNITIES: Learn What They Are And Get Started

    BLUE COMMUNITIES: Learn What They Are And Get Started

  • Tom Vilsack’s Cozy Relationship With Big Ag Makes Him A Non-Starter at USDA

    Tom Vilsack’s Cozy Relationship With Big Ag Makes Him A Non-Starter at USDA

  • Trump’s Out, Biden’s In! Now The Fight Of Our Lives On Climate Begins.

    Trump’s Out, Biden’s In! Now The Fight Of Our Lives On Climate Begins.

See More News & Opinions

For Media: See our latest press releases and statements

Food & Water Insights

Looking for more insights and our latest research?

Visit our policy & research library
  • Eversource’s Plan to Privatize New Hartford’s Water

  • The Urgent Case for a Moratorium on Mega-Dairies in New Mexico

  • Fracking, Power Plants and Exports: Three Steps for Meaningful Climate Action

Fracking activist with stickersFracking activist in hatLegal team loves family farmsFood & Water Watch organizer protecting your food

Work locally, make a difference.

Get active in your community.

Food & Water Impact

  • Victories
  • Stories
  • Facts
  • Trump, Here's a Better Use for $25 Billion

  • Here's How We're Going to Build the Clean Energy Revolution

  • How a California Activist Learned to Think Locally

Keep drinking water safe and affordable for everyone.

Take Action
food & water watch logo
en Español

Food & Water Watch mobilizes regular people to build political power to move bold & uncompromised solutions to the most pressing food, water, and climate problems of our time. We work to protect people’s health, communities, and democracy from the growing destructive power of the most powerful economic interests.

Food & Water Watch is a 501(c)3 non-profit organization.

Food & Water Action is a 501(c)4 organization.

Food & Water Watch Headquarters

1616 P Street, NW,
Washington, DC 20036

Main: 202.683.2500

Contact your regional office.

Work with us: See all job openings

  • Problems
    • Broken Democracy
    • Climate Change & Environment
    • Corporate Control of Food
    • Corporate Control of Water
    • Factory Farming & Food Safety
    • Fracking
    • GMOs
    • Global Trade
    • Pollution Trading
  • Solutions
    • Advocate Fair Policies
    • Legal Action
    • Organizing for Change
    • Research & Policy Analysis
  • Our Impact
    • Facts
    • Stories
    • Victories
  • Take Action
    • Get Active Where You Live
    • Organizing Tools
    • Find an Event
    • Volunteer with Us
    • Live Healthy
    • Donate
  • Give
    • Give Now
    • Give Monthly
    • Give a Gift Membership
    • Membership Options
    • Fundraise
    • Workplace Giving
    • Planned Giving
    • Other Ways to Give
  • About
  • News
  • Research Library
  • Contact
  • Careers
  • Donate
Learn more about Food & Water Action www.foodandwateraction.org.
  • facebook
  • twitter
  • 2021 © Food & Water Watch
  • www.foodandwaterwatch.org
  • Terms of Service
  • Data Usage Policy