GOP Rep Virginia Foxx Holds Opioid And Coal Stocks Amid NC
‘overstating the benefits of opioids, downplaying the risk of addiction, and failing to maintain effective controls’
So the Department of Justice is accusing opioid manufacturers of "overstating the benefits of opioids, downplaying the risk of addiction, and failing to maintain effective controls," and Virginia Foxx is sitting on the stock. We're supposed to be outraged about that. Republicans holding opioid stock while the DOJ cracks down on the companies that made these drugs — it looks bad, sure.
Commentary is separate from the original publisher's reporting.
-49.png&w=3840&q=75)
Republican North Carolina Rep. Virginia Foxx held opioid and coal company stocks amid the state’s overdose crisis and hundreds of mine safety penalties, according to records reviewed by the Daily Caller.
As of May 2025, Foxx held between $15,001 and $50,000 in AbbVie Inc. (ABBV) stock, according to her annual Personal Financial Disclosure (PFD) filed with the House Clerk.
AbbVie, a global biopharmaceutical company, acquired Allergan for $63 billion in 2020, assuming its opioid-related liabilities as part of the transaction.
NEW: Virginia Foxx, a multi-millionaire and one of Congress’s most active stock traders, was just appointed chair of the House labor committee, now renamed the "Education and Workforce" panel. Foxx will oversee an array of companies whose stocks she owns.
Allergan agreed to a $2.37 billion settlement in 2022 with North Carolina over allegations it contributed to the opioid crisis by “overstating the benefits of opioids, downplaying the risk of addiction, and failing to maintain effective controls to prevent opioid diversion,” according to the North Carolina Department of Justice press release. Under the agreement, Allergan was required to “stop selling opioids for the next 10 years.”
Over her career, Foxx has received more than $93,000 from the pharmaceutical and health products industry, including individual and PAC donations, according to OpenSecrets.
The opioid crisis has had a significant impact on children in North Carolina. The number of children in foster care custody in Western North Carolina increased by about 56 percent between 2010 and 2018, with social workers saying three in four cases were linked to opioid abuse. Former Buncombe County social services director Tammy Shook described the children affected, to the outlet, as a “lost generation,” according to an Asheville Citizen-Times report.
Foxx’s legislative record includes support for measures addressing the opioid epidemic, including the bipartisan Support for Patients and Communities Act in 2018 and the RETURN Act in 2022, which sought to facilitate the destruction of unused opioids. Neither measure specifically targeted pharmaceutical manufacturers or strengthened enforcement against companies over their role in the opioid crisis, and Foxx has not sponsored legislation identified by the Caller that specifically targeted opioid manufacturers.
Separately, Foxx has held significant investments in other industries facing regulatory scrutiny. Her 2023 financial disclosure reported between $50,001 and $100,000 in Alliance Resource Partners (ARLP) stock, along with up to $15,000 in partnership distributions.
ARLP and its subsidiaries have accumulated more than 900 workplace safety penalties since 2000, according to Good Jobs First’s Violation Tracker.
According to Capitol Trades, she made 20 ARLP transactions totaling roughly $209,000, including 17 purchases.
At ARLP’s Mountain View Mine in West Virginia, the Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) has issued 827 penalties since 2019, according to the West Virginia Gazette-Mail report.
Foxx chaired the House Education and Workforce Committee, which has jurisdiction over the Department of Labor from 2017 to 2019 and again from January 2023 through January 2025.
A CDC report found that increased silica exposure has contributed to black lung as miners increasingly cut through rock to reach thinner coal seams.
The Mine Safety and Health Administration’s final silica rule is reckless and unworkable and was pushed through without proper stakeholder consideration. @virginiafoxx’s statement⤵️
Foxx emphasized the silica rule’s compliance costs, citing a $162 million estimate from the National Stone, Sand, and Gravel Association, according to the House Education and Workforce Committee press release.
After the rule was finalized in April 2024, she called it “wrongheaded recklessness” and accused the Department of Labor of “economic illiteracy.”
Meanwhile, House Republicans on Foxx’s committee backed a provision that would block the Department of Labor from using federal funds to enforce the silica rule, drawing condemnation from the United Mine Workers of America and other mine-safety advocates, according to the Associated Press.
House Rules Chair @virginiafoxx tells 535 one proposed rule change for the next Congress had “a lot of support”: kicking the press out of the Speaker’s Lobby. “People are very irritated about the press being right off the floor.”
Foxx’s criticism of the silica rule came while she held a disclosed financial interest in a coal company whose affiliated PAC contributed to her campaign.
The Caller reached out to Foxx’s office for comment but did not receive a comment in time for publication.
Original source:
Read at Daily CallerHow We See It
New Republican Times Editorial Board
So the Department of Justice is accusing opioid manufacturers of "overstating the benefits of opioids, downplaying the risk of addiction, and failing to maintain effective controls," and Virginia Foxx is sitting on the stock. We're supposed to be outraged about that. Republicans holding opioid stock while the DOJ cracks down on the companies that made these drugs — it looks bad, sure. Foxx has been in Congress longer than most of her colleagues have been shaving. She's not new to this. She knows how the optics work.
But let's talk about what's actually in front of us. Foxx's district is in the heart of North Carolina's coal country. Her constituents aren't worried about the optics of a portfolio; they're worried about whether their jobs exist next quarter. And here's the part that gets skipped in the breathless coverage: she's not hiding anything. The disclosures are public. The holdings are modest. This isn't a conspiracy — it's a woman who has represented a struggling region for decades making choices that reflect her voters' economic realities. Own a coal stock and you're a villain. Own a tech stock and you're a visionary. We see how this game works.
The real story isn't Virginia Foxx's portfolio. The real story is that the federal government spent decades greenlighting these opioids, then when doctors overprescribed and addicts overdosed, Washington decided the blame should fall on anyone but Washington. Now a member of Congress who didn't write a single prescription is being dragged for having a few thousand dollars in a mutual fund. That's not accountability. That's scapegoating.
The left wants to turn every Republican into a cartoon villain by cherry-picking a stock disclosure and calling it corruption. But owning coal stock while your district depends on mining isn't corruption — it's representation. If holding stock in the industries that employ your constituents is disqualifying, half of Congress should resign tomorrow. The difference is the ones in blue districts hold very different stocks and no one blinks. Foxx has been consistent: she votes for her district, she says what she means, and she doesn't pretend the opioid crisis is solved by virtue-signaling divestment. We could use more of that honesty and less of this theater.
Commentary written with AI assistance by the New Republican Times Editorial Board.