kelcy warren

Birthday: November 9, 1955

Hometown: White Oak, Texas

Current residence: Dallas, Texas

Current role: Chairman of Energy Transfer (cofounded the company in 1996)  

Net worth: $7.1B

2023 Compensation: $6.39 million

Education: University of Texas at Arlington (1978) 

Key board memberships, affiliations, and other roles:

• President of Roatan Electric Company (RECO) in Honduras 

• Member of National Petroleum Council 

• Member of Horatio Alger Association of Distinguished Americans

• Member of Texas Business Hall of Fame

• Member of Ammys Hall of Fame 

• Member of the University of Texas System Board of Regents (2019 – 2025) 

  • Appointed by Governor Abbott

• Member of the Board of Trustees of The Kennedy Center (2019 – present) 

  • Appointed by Donald Trump

• Co-founder of Music Road Records 

• Member of Tiger 21 Dallas Chapter

Past roles: 

• Board member on the Texas Parks and Wildlife Commission (appointed by Governor Greg Abbott in 2015)

• Board member of The Lamplighter School 

• CEO and Chairman of PennTex Midstream Partners, LP (2016-2017)

• President / COO of Cornerstone Natural Gas Inc (1993-1996) 

Fun facts: 

• Warren owns the 25,000-acre Lajitas Golf Resort, which proudly displays a statue of Robert E. Lee 

• Warren started the Cherokee Creek Music Festival to raise money for children’s charities

Environmental impact of pipelines

• The environmental impacts of pipelines are manifold. They run through and disrupt ecosystems, waterways, and communities. They run the risk of spillage and exacerbate environmental injustices. Oil and gas need to be transported from where it is extracted to be refined, exported, and consumed, so added pipeline infrastructure means added capacity for the fossil fuel industry’s operations. 

Hazardous spills and explosions

• In 2022, the Pennsylvania grand jury found Energy Transfer guilty of nine counts of environmental crimes related to a 2018 explosion from one of the company’s Revolution Pipeline in Beaver County. All nine counts were related to issues with erosion control during the pipeline’s construction. Contractors were found to have used hay bales to control erosion, which alone simply does not suffice. The Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection fined the company $30 million for the explosion, siting 19 unstabilized sections of the pipeline that led to over 500 “discharges of sediment-laden water into creeks and wetlands,” the incineration of a house, the deaths of multiple household pens, the destruction of power lines, and the evacuation of dozens of nearby community members. 

• In the first eight months of 2018, Energy Transfer and its subsidiaries reported 15 spills that released 1282 barrels of hazardous liquids. These incidents caused $8.4 million in property damage. 

DAPL & Standing Rock Sioux Tribe

• Energy Transfer’s Dakota Access Pipeline violates Article II of the Fort Laramie Treaty, which is supposed to guarantee the “undisturbed use and occupation” of reservation lands through which the pipeline runs. The pipeline also poses serious health risks to the Tribe and destroys cultural resources. 

Violence against protestors 

• Not only are Energy Transfer’s pipeline operations polluting the Earth, but the company has come under fire on multiple past occasions for its problematic treatment of protestors. Warren’s company uses litigation to intimidate opponents; security contractors have threatened protestors with violence; and its pipeline sites continue to have spills and safety violations. 
  

• Energy Transfer also hired a private security firm, TigerSwan, to protect the Dakota Access Pipeline project. TigerSwan started as a US military contractor involved with executing the war on terror. Later, Energy Transfer hired TigerSwan again to infiltrate protest camps and gather information to back a lawsuit against environmental groups. 
  

SLAPP suit against Greenpeace

• In 2019, Energy Transfer filed a lawsuit against Greenpeace and three individual anti-pipeline protestors with Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) claims. The North Dakota federal court dismissed the RICO claims. This was a blatant “SLAPP” suit: Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation. In other words, the goal of the lawsuit was to silence opposition. 
  

SLAPP suit against Beto O’Rourke

• Following the 2021 energy grid collapse during a winter storm in Texas, Beto O’Rourke called into question Warren’s donation of $1 million to Greg Abbott, the Republican Texas governor. This donation was made shortly after Abbott passed legislation that allowed Energy Transfer and other natural gas companies to opt out of certain regulations on infrastructure weatherization. While campaigning against Abbott for governor, O’Rourke suggested a link between this donation – and Warren’s past donations to Abbott totaling $1.4 million – and Abbott’s passage of two bills about Texas’s power infrastructure that are lenient toward natural gas companies. 

• In response, Warren sued O’Rourke for defamation. The case was ultimately dismissed under the ruling that O’Rourke’s statements were protected by the First Amendment, with the argument that using suggestive terms like “bribery” and “corruption” are common and acceptable in political campaigns, and didn’t qualify as defamation. 
  

Anti-protest legislation

• It’s not possible to directly link Energy Transfer’s lobbying to anti-protest bills in every state, but as of 2018, several such bills have targeted pipeline protestors in locations where Energy Transfer was building pipelines. For example, a bill in Ohio called the “Protect Critical Infrastructure Facilities from Mischief” (SB 250) sought to increase the penalties for individuals and organizations protesting pipeline infrastructure.

Kelcy Warren has personally profited immensely off his crimes against the Earth. When he isn’t flying from place to place on his private Dassault Falcon 900 jet, he might be spending time at his $25 million, eight-acre mansion in Dallas, where he has a bowling alley, a baseball diamond, a racketball court, an indoor swimming pool, a tennis court, and a massive koi pond. Or he could be at his ranch in Colorado, his ranch in Cherokee, his private island – Isla Barbareta – off the coast of Honduras, or his estate in Ireland. He even named a park in Dallas after his son, Klyde Warren.

Warren has received multiple awards. He is a member of the Horatio Alger Association of Distinguished Americans, a member of the Texas Business Hall of Fame, and a member of the Ammys Hall of Fame. He has also received the Gas Processors Suppliers Association’s Hanlon Award and Ernst and Young’s Entrepreneur of the Year Award. 

Energy Transfer majorly profited after the deadly winter storms in Texas in 2021 – as power cuts and lowered prices disrupted the normal production from gas wells, Energy Transfer, with available supplies, was able to sell its gas at very high prices. Energy Transfer was sued by a Texan utility company called CPS Energy for allegedly charging 15,000 percent more for natural gas than normal (Energy Transfer denied this). 

Along with his wife, Amy Warren, Kelcy Warren’s lifetime philanthropic giving exceeds $30.9 million. Top recipients include: 

• $20 million to Klyde Warren Park 

• $12 million to University of Texas at Arlington in 2023

• $10 million to Woodall Rodgers Park Foundation in 2012

• $500,000 to Kilgore College in 2019

• At least $100,000 to the Dallas Museum of Art in 2013

• $75,000 to the Horatio Alger Association of Distinguished Americans 

The Kelcy Warren Foundation also supports the Caddo Lake Institute, which seeks to protect the “ecological, cultural, and economic integrity” of Caddo Lake.

Energy Transfer is the midstream energy company behind controversial pipeline projects including the Dakota Access Pipeline, the Bayou Bridge Pipeline, Mariner East, and others. The company transports roughly 30 percent of the United States’ oil and gas through over 125,000 miles of pipelines. The social and environmental impacts of the Dakota Access Pipeline – and the movement attempting to stop it – have been well documented. 

Energy Transfer’s “core business operations include the gathering, treating, processing, and transporting of natural gas, natural gas liquids, refined products, and crude oil. Energy Transfer also owns some of the largest terminalling and storage facilities along the Gulf Coast and in the Northeast.” 

Energy Transfer Investor Presentation – March 2024

• ET owns/operates a substantial part of the following crude oil pipelines: 

  • Bakken Pipeline (36.4%)

  • Bayou Bridge Pipeline (60%) 

  • Permian Express Partners (87.7%)

  • White Cliffs (51%)

  • Maurepas (51%)  

• ET’s Natural Gas Liquids (NGL) storage ~95 million barrels 

• Total NGL export capacity = over 1.1 million per day 
  

The Biden administration approved a moratorium on liquid natural gas exports, but Energy Transfer continued to push forward with developing its Lake Charles LNG facility project. 

The climate movement and anti-pipeline activists have protested against Energy Transfer’s work for years. Notably, the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe, and non-Native allies organized a camp on the Standing Rock Reservation to protest the Dakota Access Pipeline’s construction. The movement’s dedication was admirable, but ultimately the U.S. District Judge James Boasberg denied the injunction against the pipeline and construction continued. 

Kelcy Warren is a big fan of Jackson Browne, and Music Road Records (Warren’s recording company) produced one of Browne’s albums. Browne also played at Warren’s music festival, the Cherokee Creek Music Festival. Later, Browne released this statement: “I do not support the Dakota Access Pipeline. I will be donating all of the money I have received from this album to date, and any money received in the future, to the tribes who are opposing the pipeline…I do not play for oil interests. I do not play for companies who defile nature, or companies who attack demonstrators with trained attack dogs and pepper spray... I certainly would not have allowed my songs to be recorded by a record company whose owner’s other business does what Energy Transfer Partners is allegedly doing – threatening the water supply and the sacred sites of Indigenous people. I intend to support public resistance to the Dakota Access Pipeline as much as I can.” 

• “Yeah, I would say don't believe any of this nonsense that we're transitioning out of energy. We're not. That can’t happen, it's impossible, but we are never going to run from the rhetoric. So I would say for young people, don't buy off on that. You're too smart.” –Warren, 2023

• “You must grow until you die.”–Warren, 2015

• Regarding a Dakota Access Pipeline protestor: “For example, talking about somebody that needs to be removed from the gene pool, we had people drilling holes in our pipe.” –Warren, 2016