Regunberg’s Father-in-Law and Biggest Supporter’s Firm Holds $230M in Fossil Fuel Investments

Regunberg’s Father-in-Law and Biggest Supporter’s Firm Holds $230M in Fossil Fuel Investments

GoLocal’s ongoing investigation into the political and financial relationship between Democratic first congressional candidate Aaron Regunberg and the single biggest supporter of his campaign efforts, Jim Cielinski, has uncovered direct financial ties to the oil and gas industry.

Regunberg has, in the past, been an aggressive critic of the fossil fuel industry and those who profit from it. Last year he penned a column for The New Republic titled “The Case for Harassing the Climate Arsonists Among Us.”

Cielinski, Regunberg's father-in-law, has donated $125,000 to a political action committee that supports Regunberg’s race for Congress. Regunberg’s campaign claims that there is no coordination between Regunberg’s campaign and the PAC funded by his father-in-law.

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For Cielinski, who, besides being Regunberg’s father-in-law, is also the number two man at the investment firm Janus Henderson — a global investment first with nearly $300 billion in assets.

Janus Henderson has more than $230 million invested in fossil fuel companies, according to the website FossilFreeFunds.org. 

Regunberg, who is usually responsive to questions, refuses to respond to press inquiries about his biggest financial supporter.

 

 

 

"The Case for Harassing the Climate Arsonists Among Us"

Regunberg wrote in The New Republic that those worried about climate change need to actively go after the enablers.

"Let’s put lawyers, public relations consultants, and all the other well-paid white-collar workers who support the fossil fuel industry on notice: Find different clients," Regunberg wrote. 

In the column, Regunberg continued, “When we talk about the fossil fuel industry, it says, we should reserve our anger for the biggest players: the CEOs who lied about climate change for decades and the Wall Street tycoons who financed it all. These top-tier climate arsonists deserve our condemnation a million times over. But does that really mean we should give everyone below the C-suite a free pass, when there are countless other professionals who have made careers out of sowing climate disinformation, blocking climate action, and generally doubling down on the fossil fuel industry’s catastrophic business model?"

"In my experience, it’s a lot harder to ask someone I personally know to confront their role in the climate crisis than it is to attend a protest in relative anonymity. But people in our lives deserve to be treated as moral agents. They deserve to be encouraged to reject complicity. And if they refuse to stop helping to destroy the world, well, they deserve to pay a social price for that—maybe they shouldn’t be welcomed at the neighborhood BBQ, or allowed to coach Little League, if they’re helping to wreck those kiddos’ future or poison the neighborhood," Regunberg writes.

GoLocal has asked Regunberg if he should disavow funding from Cielinski due to his firm's investment in fossil fuel companies, but he refused to respond to questions.

 

Making Big Returns of Petroleum Investments

For Cielinski's firm Janus Henderson, the investments in the fossil fuel industry are in two major players, according to FossilFuelFunds: 

 

1. EOG Resources Inc.    $200.75 million    

2. Atlas Energy Solutions Inc Class A   $30.33 million

EOG last week reported quarterly earnings with revenues of $5.57 billion for the quarter ended June 2023, surpassing the Zacks Consensus Estimate by 3.89%. This compares to year-ago revenues of $7.41 billion. The company has topped consensus revenue estimates four times over the last four quarters. EOG has seen significant growth this year. It has climbed 29% over the 52-week low.

Atlas Energy Solutions describes itself on its investor website, "Atlas is a leader in the proppant and proppant logistics industry and is currently solely focused on serving customers in the Permian Basin of West Texas & New Mexico, the most active oil and natural gas producing regions in North America...Our core mission is to maximize value for our stockholders by generating strong cash flow and allocating our capital resources efficiently, including providing a regular and durable return of capital to our investors through industry cycles." Atlas' stock is up 40% over its 52-week low.