Houston, Texas-Based Natural Gas Transmission Company Columbia Pipeline Group's Top-Tier Executives Average Pay Raise Was a Blistering 25.2% Per Year During the Three Years (2013-2015) It Filed Executive Compensation Information With the SEC From the Time It Separated From Northwest Indiana Utility NiSource to When It Was Sold to TransCanada for $13 Bil. And This 25.2% Excluded Any Golden Parachute Payments. Columbia Pipeline Group's Five Top-Tier Executives Were Projected to Get Potential Change in Control Payments (Golden Parachutes) of $50.571 Mil, Which Was 2.84 TIMES the Total Executive Compensation They Received in Annual 2015 of $17.838 Mil. These Top-Tier Executives Also Cleaned Up From the Huge Amount of Columbia Pipeline Group Stock They Received in the Separation From NiSource Which Also Appreciated Significantly Due To TransCanada Acquiring It.

The third Democratic 2020 Presidential candidate televised debate will be held in Houston, Texas on September 12, 2019.  Texas is also the home state of Julian Castro and Beto O'Rourke, who have both gained significant momentum in the past month.

The key issue to Texas citizens should be the huge and continuing Income Inequality Expansion which is at the core of many critical problems the US faces.

Thus I will be doing research and making posts on the average pay raise per year that the Top-Tier Executives of large Texas Companies were rewarded with in the past ten years.  I completed my study of large Texas Non-Oil & Companies and now I am studying large Texas Oil & Gas Companies. 

The 48th Texas Oil & Gas Company I am addressing here is Columbia Pipeline Group, which was spun off from Merrillville, Indiana Utility Company Nisource in 2015 and later sold to TransCanada for $13 Bil in 2016.

From annual compensation information contained in Company 10-K/A and 10-12B filings with the US SEC, the chart at the very bottom below shows Columbia Pipeline Group's Top-Tier Executives Annual Total Compensation for each of the two consecutive full years of employment for three years ..... 2013 through 2015 ..... that it was disclosed.
  
Columbia Pipeline Group's Top-Tier Executives Average Pay Raise was a blistering 25.2% per year for these three years, which is the 19th highest of the 48 large Texas Oil & Gas Companies I have addressed so far.

1. RSP Permian Inc +281.7% per year for four years
2. Kosmos Energy +264.0% per year for the past eight years
3. Cactus Inc +243.0% per year for the past two years
4. ProPetro Holding Corp +241.9% per year for the past three years
5. Apergy +146.9%per year for the past two years
6. Cheniere Energy Inc +141.9% per year for the past ten years
7. Talos Energy +118.9% per year for the past two years
8. Kinder Martin +115.8% per year for the past ten years
9. Parsley Energy +72.8% per year for the past six years.
10. Buckeye Partners +60.9% per year for the past ten years
11. Texas Pacific Land Trust +57.5% per year for the past ten years
12. Diamondback Energy +52.9% per year for the past seven years
13. Targa Resources +46.9% per year for the past ten years
14. Matador Resources +38.4% per year for the past eight years
15. Blackstone Minerals LP +36.1% per year for the past five years
16. Enlink Midstream +35.7% per year for the past seven years
17. Concho Resources +31.2% per year for the past ten years
18. Western Refining +25.8% per year for eight years
19. Columbia Pipeline Group +25.2% per year for three years
20. Marathon Oil +23.3% per year for the past ten years
21. CVR Energy +21.9% per year for the past ten years
22. Andeavor Logistics LP +20.6% per year for the past seven years
23. Energy Transfer Companies +19.2% per year for the past ten years 
24. Andeavor +18.1% per year for nine years
25. NuStar Energy LP +17.6% per year for the past ten years
26. FMC Technologies +17.1% per year for seven years
27. Spectra Energy Corp +16.4% per year for seven years
28. Enterprise Products Partners +16.2% per year for the past ten years
29. ConocoPhillips +14.8% per year for the past ten years
30. Pioneer Natural Resources +14.4% per year for the past ten years
31. Halliburton +14.3% per year for the past ten years
32. Occidental Petroleum +14.3% per year for the past ten years
33. Patterson-UTI Energy +14.0% per year for the past ten years
34. Western Gas Partners +13.3% per year for the past ten years
35. National Oilwell Varco+13.1% per year for the past ten years
36. The New Baker Hughes, a GE Company +12.2% per year for the past three years  
37. HollyFrontier Corp +11.2% per year for the past ten years.
38. Plains All America Pipeline +10.4% per year for the past ten years
39. Cabot Oil & Gas +10.3% per year for the past ten years
40. Valero Energy Corp +10.1% per year for the past ten years
41. The Old Baker Hughes Inc +9.9% per year for eight years excluding Golden Parachutes Pay
42. Schlumberger Limited +9.6% per year for the past ten yearss a New York Times
43. Apache Corp +8.4% per year for the past ten years
44. Noble Energy Inc +6.5% per year for the past ten years
45. Phillips 66 +5.4% per year for the past five years
46. EOG Resources +5.1% per year for the past ten years
47. Exxon Mobil +1.2% per year for the past ten years
48. Anadarko Petroleum +1.1% per year for the past ten years

But the story here isn't the blistering high 25.2% per year average annual pay raises but rather the substantial Golden Parachute payments these Columbia Pipeline Group Top-Tier Executives received. 

Here's a link for a New York Times article relating to these Golden Parachute payments.

https://www.nwitimes.com/business/local/ex-nisource-execs-end-columbia-run-will-collect-golden-parachutes/article_0c2bb429-c073-5e23-8c0b-dd18d34b851d.html

There have been many US Government laws enacted in the past two decades that have substantially increased income inequality expansion, but none more so than the Trump Tax Cuts Act.   

On the other hand, the only highly effective US Government law enacted by either party in the past two decades that has substantially reduced income inequality expansion is Obamacare.

My objective is to get a better handle on just why the US and particularly here Texas has such massive continuing Income Inequality Expansion ..... it appears to be predominantly about the relative long-term annual pay raise percentages for the executives of a Company vs the many non-executive employees of a Company, coupled with the stock price appreciation subsequent to the time the company executives were rewarded in their pay with stock equity compensation.

To fix Income Inequality driven mainly by Company and its Board of Director choices on Percentage Annual Pay Raises, the US Government should step in and pass wisely-designed, simple but effective Fair Pay Raise Income Inequality Narrowing Company tax incentives for rewarding non-executive employees with fair pay increases ..... the carrot ..... and Company tax disincentives for rewarding executive employees with clearly excessively high pay increases ..... the stick.  I am certain ..... it is simple math ..... that this tax proposal would be very effective in substantially reducing the huge income inequality expansion that has occurred for decades in annual percentage pay raises between company executives and the rest of the company employees. 

And the continuing annual net tax revenues raised by the US Government here should be set up in a separate fund to be used only for wise additional income inequality narrowing initiatives.  This fund should be run by an outside group made up entirely of minorities harmed the most by Income Inequality Expansion of the past decades  .....all women, all blacks, all Latinos, all other non-white people, all past and present union members, all LGBTQ, all non-employee contract workers and all middle and lower income people of all ages, including those retired.

Also, the US Government should require all US Corporate Boards to include at least one worker representative and to exclude any Company Executive.

Further, the US Government should ban Golden Parachutes.

	Potential	FYE		FYE	FYE		FYE	FYE		FYE	FYE		FYE	FYE
	Change	Dec		Dec	Dec		Dec	Dec		Dec	Dec		Dec	Dec
Columbia Priceline Group	in	2015		2015	2014		2014	2013		2013	2012		2012	2011
Top-Tier	Control	Total		Total	Total		Total	Total		Total	Total		Total	Total
Executive	Payments	Comp		Comp	Comp		Comp	Comp		Comp	Comp		Comp	Comp
	$ 000s	$ 000s		$ 000s	$ 000s		$ 000s	$ 000s		$ 000s	$ 000s		$ 000s	$ 000s
Robert Skaggs CEO	23,602	8,711		8,711	8,282		8,282	5,179		5,179	4,682		N/A	N/A
Stephen Smith CFO	9,554	3,440		3,440	3,275		3,275	2,347		2,347	2,227		N/A	N/A
Glen Kettering President	7,269	3,058		3,058	2,792		2,792	1,748		1,748	1,155		N/A	N/A
Stanley Chapman EVPChiefCommercialOfficer	5,379	1,362
Shawn Patterson EVP COO	4,767	1,267
Totals	50,571	17,838		15,209	14,349		14,349	9,274		9,274	8,064		N/A	N/A
Annual % Change vs Prior Year	183.5%			6.0%			54.7%			15.0%			N/A
3 Year Average Per Year % Change					25.2%