By Georgina Gustin
As farmers grapple with soaring diesel and fertilizer prices and the Department of Agriculture yanks support for cheaper, renewable forms of energy, the agency’s chief, Brooke Rollins, is carrying millions in highly profitable oil and gas investments.
In disclosure reports filed in July, Rollins indicated that she and her husband, Mark Rollins, an oil and gas industry executive, together hold as much as $2.5 million in fossil fuel investments. At least $1 million of that is in HKN II, a limited partnership with oil and gas interests in the Kurdistan region of Iraq; another $1 million, at least, is in Hillwood Energy New Ventures, which has interests in oil and gas operations in Texas, Rollins’ home state. Rollins also disclosed that she holds between $250,000 and $550,000 in investments in operating companies that own oil and gas assets in Texas.
Since the beginning of this year and President Donald Trump’s launch of the war in Iran, oil and gas prices have skyrocketed, and so have industry profits. Prices for diesel hit record highs this week, while prices of fertilizer, which are manufactured with natural gas and tied to the market, have also spiked this year, hitting an agriculture industry already battered by Trump’s tariffs and increasingly extreme weather events.
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