Bresnahan’s account bought oil stocks before Big Beautiful Bill vote

U.S. Rep. Rob Bresnahan (R-PA) bought shares in four oil companies and Caterpillar on May 15, 2025, a week before the House first passed the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA), which included tax and drilling provisions analysts said would benefit those industries.

The purchases came the same day Bresnahan’s account sold stock in nine health care companies, including insurers that cover Medicaid enrollees, as Heartland Signal reported Oct. 21. Bresnahan has said a financial advisor makes his trades without his input.

According to Quiver Quantitative, the stocks his account purchased on May 15, 2025, seven weeks before Congress gave final approval to the bill on July 3, include:

• COP (ConocoPhillips): Purchased stock worth $15,001 to $50,000
• MPC (Marathon Petroleum): Purchased stock worth $1,001 to $15,000
• OXY (Occidental Petroleum): Purchased stock worth $1,001 to $15,000
• VLO (Valero Energy Corp.): Purchased stock worth $1,001 to $15,000
• CAT (Caterpillar): Purchased stock worth $1,001 to $15,000

The law “includes many provisions intended to expand onshore oil and gas leasing and drilling on federal lands, including requirements for extensive federal lease sales, lower oil and gas royalty rates, and curtailed environmental restrictions on leasing,” according to Thomson Reuters Practical Law.

COP, MPC, OXY and VLO are all petroleum companies. ConocoPhillips is a Texas-based, multinational energy company that focuses on crude oil and natural gas exploration and production. Marathon Petroleum is an Ohio-based petroleum refining, marketing and transportation company. Occidental Petroleum is a Texas-based, international oil and gas exploration and production company. And Valero Energy Corp. is a Texas-based fuels producer focused primarily on manufacturing and marketing transportation fuels. 

Caterpillar is a Texas-based company that manufactures construction and mining equipment, off-highway engines, industrial gas turbines and locomotives. Caterpillar stood to benefit from the bill as an element allows businesses to deduct from taxes the entire cost of certain purchases — like machinery or other heavy equipment — the year it’s put into service, according to Kiplinger. That’s opposed to the previous policy, which allowed businesses to deduct only 40% of the purchase price and required them to spread the tax deduction over multiple years. This could encourage businesses to spend more on necessary capital equipment and take the entire deduction up front.

“And don’t forget, the Big Beautiful Bill is a bill that is made for things like Caterpillar,” CNBC host Jim Cramer said in July 2025, as quoted by Insider Monkey.

In February 2025, Bresnahan voted for the House budget resolution that set up the bill, which directed at least $880 billion in cuts from programs overseen by the committee that handles Medicaid.

He said afterward that if he were “presented with a bill that is going to gut Medicaid benefits to the people that legally deserve them,” he was “ready to cast a resounding no vote.” He later voted for the final bill.

The Republican also ran for election on a campaign promise to ban congressional stock trading. But in August 2025, he went back on that promise and said he will keep trading, as otherwise he would “lose money and go broke.” 

Bresnahan faces Democratic challenger Paige Cognetti, mayor of Scranton, in Pennsylvania’s 8th Congressional District on Tuesday, Nov. 3. Heartland Signal reached out to Bresnahan’s and Cognetti’s campaigns for comment on the Republican’s stock trades. Neither responded.