The Oil and Gas Executive Funding Climate Action Against Oil and Gas

At its peak, Standard Oil controlled over 90 percent of U.S. oil production through a vertically integrated monopoly. What was once a single oil refinery in Cleveland became a massive oil trust comprised of dozens of companies across every state, all controlled through stock ownership. The total financial control of an entire industry by one company made its owner, John D. Rockefeller, immensely wealthy, becoming the world’s first billionaire and one of the richest men in American history.

Standard Oil would eventually be broken up by the federal government via anti-trust into smaller companies that would go on to become separate oil giants: Chevron (Standard Oil of California and Kentucky), Amoco (Standard Oil of Indiana, Nebraska, and Kansas), and ExxonMobil (Standard Oil of New Jersey), among others.

While ExxonMobil came out of Rockefeller’s Standard Oil empire, ten years ago the heirs to the Rockefeller fortune took a 180 degree turn from the industry that birthed their wealth and became adamant anti-oil and anti-natural gas climate activists.

In 2015, the Rockefeller Brothers Fund—one of the philanthropic arms of the Rockefeller Family—began funding investigations into ExxonMobil’s knowledge of climate change in the 1970s, beginning a wave of state litigation against the oil giant and other petroleum companies. The fund would announce its complete disinvestment from fossil fuels, calling ExxonMobil’s continued exploration for oil and gas and its disbelief in human-caused climate change “morally reprehensible.”

According to E&E news, the fund gave over $3 million to support climate liability lawsuits between 2015 and 2019, although their 2023 IRS filing now lists over $27.8 million spent on climate-specific nonprofits alone. That doesn’t include other donations to general environmental groups like the $1.26 million given to the National Resources Defense Council (NRDC) in 2023, which also works on climate, or the millions given to donor networks like the Tides Foundation, who in turn make donations to various climate groups.

While the Rockefellers accused ExxonMobil of a conspiracy to deny and suppress climate change research, ExxonMobil would in turn accuse the Rockefellers of being a conspiracy to create lawsuits.

But not just lawsuits. Rockefeller Advisors—another philanthropic arm of the Rockefeller family—regularly funds climate change activist groups like Bill McKibben’s 350.org and the Climate Defense Project, working to shutdown the Mountain Valley gas pipeline between Virginia and West Virginia through protest and civil disobedience, along with a wide array of other liberal causes similar to those funded by George Soros.

Yet for all of the Rockefeller heirs’ moral outrage at fossil fuels and disinvestment, Rockefeller Capital Management is still substantially invested in oil and gas giants like ExxonMobil, Shell, and Chevron, with approximately $150 million held in stocks of each.

Not only that, at least one member of the family is actively working in the oil and gas industry. Mac Broderick is director of Rockefellers Advisors, but he’s also executive director for the oil and gas trading firm Castleton Commodities international (CCI). He previously worked for the Houston oil and gas company Tellurian and was also an investment manager in Russia and Ukraine. According to IRS filings, he has a family relationship with other Rockefeller family members on the board and is therefore likely a member of the family himself.

Why would someone work for a company trading oil and gas while simultaneously funding groups actively trying to shut down the trading of oil and gas?

This is not the first time someone invested in fossil fuels simultaneously campaigned against it. Tom Steyer ran for president heavily focused on combatting climate change by defunding fossil fuels despite the fact that he made his money on fossil fuels and his hedge fund was still substantially invested in Australian coal.

Fewer Pipelines Means Higher Gas and Electricity Costs

The climate protests have been successful at convincing politicians to limit development of pipelines—not just the Mountain Valley Pipeline, but the Keystone XL (ND), Constitution (NY), Enbridge (MN, WI), and Northeast Energy Direct pipeline projects would all be shut down following intense criticism from climate protestors. The Dakota Access Pipeline (ND, SD, IA, IL) was eventually built, but only after a long-fought battle mounted by environmental groups and native tribes.

Without sufficient natural gas pipeline infrastructure, energy costs run higher. While climate groups protest the pipelines and reliance on natural gas, energy utilities continue to turn to natural gas in greater quantities. Since 2016, natural gas went from 33 percent of fuel generation to 43 percent based on data from the Energy Information Administration (EIA).

Areas with less access to natural gas via pipeline tend to have higher costs for electricity generation and higher prices paid for natural gas, particularly during periods of unpredicted, intense demand. Natural gas can’t readily be stored in advance of need, so supply contracts need to be coordinated in advance.

When New England—an area with historically low access to natural gas via pipeline—experienced the polar vortex in 2014, demand for natural gas for heating shot up and electricity prices went with them. At a point power costs reached $123 per MMBtu, around five times the average price for electricity.

Larger dependance on renewables has only added to the problem of declining resiliency, growing unpredictability, and higher costs in certain areas. When a snowstorm hit Texas in 2021 driving prices through the roof, wind generators that were unable to produce at a moment of intense demand were forced to buy power on the spot market to meet their obligations, paying sky-high rates and sending companies into bankruptcy.

Sample of Rockefeller Family Funding Climate Organizations in 2023