How Jeff Sessions Profited from Introducing a Fracking Exemption for Drinking Water Rules

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With U.S. Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL) in the midst of Senate confirmation hearings, watchdog group Food and Water Watch has raised new questions about how Sessionsย and his familyย profited from a fracking loophole provision he introduced in theย Senate.

The group has unveiled new documents showing that Sessions’ย family owned stock in Energen, a Birmingham, Alabama-basedย oil and gas company, which pioneered fracking in Alabama and in turn benefited from Sen. Sessionsโ€™ push to exempt hydraulic fracturing (โ€œfrackingโ€) from U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) enforcement of the Safe Drinking Waterย Act.

Known better as the โ€œHalliburton Loophole,โ€ Sessions co-sponsored โ€” along with climate-denying U.S. Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK)ย โ€”ย the first federal bill (S.724) to exempt fracking activities from drinking waterย regulations, a 1999 bill which later passed as a provisionย of the Energy Policy Act of 2005. A few years later, Energen’s stock raised significantly in value, and Sessions and his wife cashed out inย 2008.ย 

โ€œIn 1995, as Sessions ran for a Senate seat, he and his wife held between $1,001-$15,000 in Energen stock,โ€ wrote Food and Water Watch in a press release announcing the findings, which came from reviewing congressional disclosure forms. โ€œThey reported the same for 1996. In 1997 and 1998, the same range in value was posted as jointly owned. But in 1999 โ€” the year Inhofe and Sessions introduced the bill to exempt Energenโ€™s and other fracking operations from regulation under the Safe Drinking Water Act โ€” the senator reported that his wife had separately acquired through inheritance an additional stake in Energen, valued atย $15,000-$50,000.โ€


Image credit:ย Select Committee on Ethics of the U.S.ย Senate

โ€œThey reported the same for 1996, 1997 and 1998,โ€ continued Food and Water Watch. โ€œIn 2008, Sessions and his wife cashed out the stock. After averaging about $5 a share in 1995, Energen stock hit a year-long high of $78 a share in May ofย 2008.โ€


Image Credit: Office of Congressionalย Ethics

Today, 71 percent of Energen’s oil and gas sits in Texas’ Permian shale basin, including 99 percent of its proven oilย reserves.ย 

Energen’s Influence Peddling and Ties toย Sessions

According to documents published byย the Alabama Oil and Gas Board, Energen officialsย actively participated in meetings alongside officials affiliated with Halliburton, Philips Petroleum, and others at a March 1999 hearing, which centered around what to do about water regulations as applied to fracking. At the time, as Desmog has reported, the Interstate Oil and Gas Compact Commission (IOGCC) was also pushing hard against applying EPA clean water regulations toย fracking.

Twenty days after that Alabama Oil and Gas Board hearing, Sessions introduced S.724 on March 25, 1999. Former Sessions staffer David Stewart now serves as a lobbyist for Energen,ย working for the firm Bradley Arant Boult Cummings LLP.

This firm, then named Bradley, Arant, Rose & White,ย had lobbyists and attorneys who attended the March 1999ย hearing on behalf of their clients. Sessions receivedย $7,500ย in campaign contributions from Energen during his successful 2014 U.S. Senate re-election campaign, $5,000 during the 2008 re-election cycle, and $10,000 during the 2002 re-electionย cycle.

โ€œSenator Sessionsโ€™ attempt to deregulate fracking at a time his wife was acquiring a large stake in an oil and gas company that would directly benefit raises many questions,โ€ย Wenonah Hauter, Executive Director of Food and Water Watch, said in a press release. โ€œIt adds to the many other ethics questions that are swirling around his nomination โ€” not to mention his troubling civil rightsย record.โ€ย 

It remains to be seen whether Sessions will face questions about his support for the S.724 (โ€œthe Halliburton Loopholeโ€) or his Energen stockย sell-off.

Main image Credit: C-SPAN3ย Screenshot

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Steve Horn is the owner of the consultancy Horn Communications & Research Services, which provides public relations, content writing, and investigative research work products to a wide range of nonprofit and for-profit clients across the world. He is an investigative reporter on the climate beat for over a decade and former Research Fellow for DeSmog.

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