Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colorado) failed to disclose her husband’s large energy company earnings during her congressional campaign as required by law, according to a report by The Associated Press.
Boebert’s husband made $478,000 last year and $460,000 in 2019 while consulting for Terra Energy Productions, according to the disclosure. The lawmaker, who filed the 2020 earnings this week, should have reported the income last year during her run for office, as campaign and congressional finance laws require lawmakers to disclose all sources of income, including investments.
AP reported that, while there is no Terra Energy Productions in Colorado, there is a Houston, Texas-based company called Terra Energy Partners that claims to be “one of the largest producers of natural gas in Colorado.”
The late disclosure raises ethical questions for transparency advocates.
“Voters have a right to know what financial interest their elected officials might be beholden to,” Kedric Payne, Campaign Legal Center senior ethics director and former deputy chief counsel for the Office of Congressional Ethics, told The Washington Post. The Office of Congressional Ethics should investigate the lawmaker for what “could be [a] criminal” failure to disclose, if it was done intentionally.
Boebert now serves on the House Natural Resources Committee, which oversees energy and land management in the U.S., including fossil fuel extraction inland and offshore. She has also introduced legislation that could have benefited her husband financially or professionally, as Terra Energy’s focus is on oil and gas exploration, according to its website.
Since January, when Boebert was sworn in, she has introduced several pro-fossil fuel bills and made statements aimed at bolstering the industry or taking down its detractors, the American Independent reported.
In her first month in office, the Colorado representative introduced a bill that would have barred the U.S. from reentering the 2015 Paris Agreement, a nonbinding international agreement to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
The next month, she introduced a bill that would keep the U.S. from banning oil and gas leasing on federal lands and reverse Joe Biden’s decision to axe the Keystone XL pipeline.
Boebert criticized the Green New Deal after Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-New York) and Sen. Ed Markey (D-Massachusetts) reintroduced the resolution earlier this year. In her statement, Boebert said that the proposal calls for a reduction in fossil fuel use that would throw the country into “a literal energy dark age.”
Boebert is not the only lawmaker defending fossil fuels who has close ties to the industry. The oil and gas industry contributes millions to lawmakers, influencing Republicans and Democrats alike to continue legislating in their favor. The most recent and high profile example of this is the infrastructure bill, which was stripped of its climate provisions by lawmakers under the influence of oil giant Exxon.
The Colorado Republican also faces scrutiny over other potentially illegal actions involving campaign funds, including questions from the Federal Election Commission over an “apparent personal use of thousands of dollars in campaign funds.”
We’re not backing down in the face of Trump’s threats.
As Donald Trump is inaugurated a second time, independent media organizations are faced with urgent mandates: Tell the truth more loudly than ever before. Do that work even as our standard modes of distribution (such as social media platforms) are being manipulated and curtailed by forces of fascist repression and ruthless capitalism. Do that work even as journalism and journalists face targeted attacks, including from the government itself. And do that work in community, never forgetting that we’re not shouting into a faceless void – we’re reaching out to real people amid a life-threatening political climate.
Our task is formidable, and it requires us to ground ourselves in our principles, remind ourselves of our utility, dig in and commit.
As a dizzying number of corporate news organizations – either through need or greed – rush to implement new ways to further monetize their content, and others acquiesce to Trump’s wishes, now is a time for movement media-makers to double down on community-first models.
At Truthout, we are reaffirming our commitments on this front: We won’t run ads or have a paywall because we believe that everyone should have access to information, and that access should exist without barriers and free of distractions from craven corporate interests. We recognize the implications for democracy when information-seekers click a link only to find the article trapped behind a paywall or buried on a page with dozens of invasive ads. The laws of capitalism dictate an unending increase in monetization, and much of the media simply follows those laws. Truthout and many of our peers are dedicating ourselves to following other paths – a commitment which feels vital in a moment when corporations are evermore overtly embedded in government.
Over 80 percent of Truthout‘s funding comes from small individual donations from our community of readers, and the remaining 20 percent comes from a handful of social justice-oriented foundations. Over a third of our total budget is supported by recurring monthly donors, many of whom give because they want to help us keep Truthout barrier-free for everyone.
You can help by giving today. Whether you can make a small monthly donation or a larger gift, Truthout only works with your support.