One in four U.S. senators still hold fossil fuel investments even as world burns

This article originally appeared at Common Dreams. As President Joe Biden aims to assure the world that the United States will fulfill its promise to slash its greenhouse gas emissions in half from 2005 levels by the end of the decade, a new report published Friday reveals that the members of the U.S. Senate who would have to pass climate legislation are heavily invested in the fossil fuel industry. According to Sludge, 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," while the committee he chairs "also added more than $11.3 billion in funding to the bipartisan infrastructure bill that could benefit his family company's niche waste coal industry." Other Democratic senators whose households are heavily invested in fossil fuels include: John Hickenlooper holds up to $1 million in investments in Chevron and other polluters; Tom Carper owns as much as $274,000 in Chevron and Duke Energy shares; Gary Peters has up to $355,000 in NextEra, DTE Energy, and Pacific Gas & Electric stock in his portfolio; and The wife of Angus King—a Maine independent who caucuses with Democrats—owns up to $50,000 worth of NextEra shares. Earlier this year, Common Dreams reported that six Democratic senators—Manchin, Chris Coons, Maggie Hassan, Mark Kelly, Kyrsten Sinema, and Jon Tester —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.