I recently reported in this space that Secretary of State John Kerry his wife, Teresa Heinz, have millions sheltered in offshore tax havens. Now further digging into the family’s holdings reveal an even darker secret. Despite Kerry’s outspoken demand that America drastically reduce its reliance on fossil fuels, his family investments heavily favor oil, coal, and natural gas companies while giving scant attention to renewable energy firms, according to a Daily Caller News Foundation analysis.
In his latest 2015 financial disclosure report obtained by TheDCNF, Kerry listed family trust investments in 94 companies involved in the exploration, extraction, storage and transportation of oil, natural gas, coal, and liquefied natural gas.
Several of the investments are in companies that use hydraulic fracturing, known as fracking, which is passionately opposed by environmentalists.
Will this presidential election be the most important in American history?
Kerry and his wife, who inherited a portion of the Heinz family fortune, also reported family trust investments in 56 other companies closely tied to fossil fuels such as petrochemical companies, airlines, and car and truck manufacturers, along with conventional electric utilities that mainly rely on coal, oil and gas.
The Kerry-Heinz family trusts invested in only four companies involved in alternative renewable energy products or in firms that seek to reduce energy consumption.
The investments contradict Kerry’s public comments only a week ago at a United Nations’ signing ceremony for the new Paris Agreement on Climate Change, which is designed to reduce the world’s reliance on fossil fuels.
At the ceremony, Kerry promised the 175 nations in attendance:
We will do our part. We will live up to our responsibility to future generations and together, citizens of the world, we will work to save our planet from ourselves.
However, the Kerry-Heinz investment trusts do not appear to reflect a vision compatible with the Paris Agreement.
Dominating the billion-dollar Kerry-Heinz estate are trust investments in many of the world’s oldest oil companies.
One Heinz trust, the “HFI Index Fund,” lists investments in 81 companies directly involved in the oil, gas, shale oil, coal and LNG industries. They include such oil company giants as Conoco Phillips, Hess Corporation, Apache, Marathon Oil, Occidental Petroleum, Phillips 66, and Valero Energy.
Another trust, the “H.J. Heinz III Marital Trust” invests in Anadarko Petroleum, TOTAL S.A., the French oil giant, Occidental Petroleum and Suncor Energy, the Calgary, Alberta Canadian firm, which explores in Canadian oil sands using fracking.
A third trust, the “Heinz Family Alternative Stock Commingled Fund” invested in Anadarko Petroleum Corp. Apache Corp, Ecolab which enables oil viscosity and Noble Energy another fracking company.
Three other companies involved in fracking in the Heinz family portfolio included Houston-based Cabot Oil & Gas, along with Oklahoma-based Gulfport Energy and the Williams Companies.
The Obama administration has attempted to curtail fracking by issuing rules on “drilling safety” to be administered by the Bureau of Land Management. The Environmental Protection Agency under Obama, however, has said fracking is safe when done carefully.
A federal judge temporarily blocked implementation of the new BLM rules last year when the Independent Petroleum Association of America and the Western Energy Alliance sued the administration over the rules.
The State Department also blocked the building of the Keystone XL pipeline, a project to transport oil from Canada’s oil sands to refineries in Illinois, Oklahoma and Texas. Environmentalists claim the Canadian oil produces more carbon emissions than crude produced elsewhere.
In February 2015, to the delight of environmentalists, Obama vetoed a bill designed to permit the construction of the pipeline.
On the broad issue of offshore oil drilling, the Kerry-Heinz trusts invests in companies involved in deep water offshore drilling, subsea drilling, drilling ships, oil and gas pipelines, refining, storage and transportation.
The trusts also have trust investments in natural gas exploration, storage and transportation, including the use of LNG, also a fuel long-protested by environmentalist.
Nineteen regional utilities are also heavily represented in their investments, all of which are conventional electric utilities that depend on fossil fuels, including natural gas and coal.
The Kerry-Heinz trusts invested in DuPont and WR Grace, two large chemical companies that depend on fossil fuels.
Car and truck companies are also represented in the trusts’ investments, including Ford Motor Co., heavy equipment manufacturer Deere & Company, motorcycle giant Harley Davidson, Goodyear Tire and Rubber and rental car companies Hertz, Avis, and Alamo.
The only alternative car company in the Kerry-Heinz family trusts portfolio is the all-electric luxury car manufactured by Tesla, which received a $465 million government subsidy from the Obama administration and continues to lose $4,000 per vehicle. The firm, however, has received robust pre-sales orders for a new, lower-cost upcoming sedan. Current models range from $70,000 to $100,00.
The Kerry-Heinz trusts also have invested in 10 airline companies, including American Airlines, Delta and United Continental. Among aircraft manufacturers, the trust’s portfolio has invested in the luxury jet manufacturer Lear, Boeing and Lockheed Martin which specializes in aerospace defense.
The sole renewable energy company in the trust’s portfolio is NRG Energy, a solar and wind company whose CEO for 12 years, David Crane, resigned earlier this year due to mounting stockholder dissatisfaction with management of the company.
Also in the “sustainable” category is Aquion Energy which makes batteries that run on salt water and NGEN, a venture capital firm that invests in companies dedicated to sustainable energy consumption.
TheDCNF reached out to several environmental groups, the Natural Resources Defense Council, the Environmental Defense Fund and 350.org. None responded to requests for comment.
Myron Ebell, director of the Competitive Enterprise Institute’s Center for Energy and the Environment, said he wasn’t surprised that the Kerry-Heinz trusts chose fossil fuel investments.
“They have rational, skilled people on their investments. They’re not going to invest in all that (environmental) stuff because everyone knows those things are not wise investments. They’re risky,” Ebell told TheDCNF.
State Department spokesman Adm. John Kirby emphasized that neither Kerry nor his wife control the investments but conceded that Mrs. Heinz ultimately was a beneficiary.
He also emphasized that Kerry “has been a lifelong advocate for the environment and has worked tirelessly to achieve meaningful solutions to address climate change.”
“No one takes the threat of climate change more seriously than Secretary Kerry,” he told TheDCNF.
This report, by Richard Pollock, was cross-posted by arrangement with the Daily Caller News Foundation.
