Tag: ESG

Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti Details Consumer Protection Lawsuit Against BlackRock’s ESG Investing

Kaitlin Housler
TN AG Courtroom

Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti said his consumer protection lawsuit against BlackRock’s Environmental, Social and Corporate Governance (ESG) investing will force the company to disclose if it is mixing ESG factors when making investment decisions instead of focusing on financial factors relative to the rate of return.

Skrmetti filed his lawsuit against BlackRock in December 2023, alleging that the hedge fund has misled consumers in Tennessee about the scale and impacts of its ESG initiatives for several years.

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Gov. McMaster Signs Bill to Ban ESG from South Carolina’s Retirement System

The Center Square
Gov. Henry McMaster

South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster ceremonially signed a measure mandating the state’s retirement system to consider only “pecuniary factors” when making investment decisions.

H.3690, the ESG Pension Protection Act, effectively bans the South Carolina Retirement System Investment Commission from weighing environmental, social and governance factors and orders the system to maximize the highest rate of return for beneficiaries. The state House passed the measure by a 103-5 margin, while the state Senate passed it 45-0.

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Corporate America is Starting to Shy Away from Woke Business as Backlash Mounts

Admin
Office Meeting

American companies are reversing the multiyear trend of hiring more employees in roles related to environmental, social and corporate governance (ESG) issues in an effort to increase profitability and address investor pushback, according to The Wall Street Journal.

U.S. companies shed 3,071 employees with positions related to ESG in December while only adding 2,897, continuing the trend that has been seen in half of the months in the last year of a net loss of ESG positions, according to the WSJ. The shift is in response to investors pulling their funds from companies heavily involved in ESG practices and placing their money in firms where they can get higher returns.

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Bill Ackman on Washington Post Hit Piece: ‘The Public Has Been Again Misled’

Michael Patrick Leahy

Bill Ackman, the highly successful hedge fund manager and Harvard graduate whose criticism of Claudine Gay’s history of plagiarism led to her resignation as President of Harvard University, published a lengthy tweet on his X account Sunday evening responding to an article about him published by The Washington Post earlier in the day. Here is that post in its entirety:

I am sure all of us have had the experience of reading a story about a subject you know well and finding it replete with inaccuracies and falsehoods. One then turns the page and reads an article about a subject one knows less well and makes the mistake of believing that this other story is accurate. I am guilty of this sin. I am sadly repeatedly reminded to mistrust what I read in the media, and I am not alone. Destruction of confidence in our media is contributing to societal breakdown, and that is a very unfortunate state of affairs.

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Commentary: To Rebuild Trust, U.S. Banks Have a Lot of Work to Do

RealClearWire

Trust in banks has plummeted.  From 2019-2022, the percentage of people who believe banks and financial institutions have a positive effect on the country fell among Republicans (from 63 to 38 percent) and Independents (by nine points). The problem grows every time a right-of-center group is debanked. Recognizing the problem, “rebuilding trust” is the theme of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. The path to rebuild trust in finance is simple—keep politics out of banking.

In spite of an alleged priority of building trust, the largest banks are aligning themselves with radical United Nations (UN) climate initiatives linked to radical efforts to reduce Africa’s population and destroy Sri Lankan agriculture.

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Tom Pappert Details How ESG Standards Being Pushed by Banks Would ‘Bankrupt’ American Farmers

Kaitlin Housler

Tom Pappert, lead reporter for The Tennessee Star, joined Tuesday’s edition of The Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy to discuss his recent article on the Tennessee Agriculture Commissioner’s omission on a letter concerning Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) policies being pushed on American farmers.

On Tuesday, Pappert reported that Tennessee Agriculture Commissioner Dr. Charlie Hatcher did not sign a letter sent by 12 states to the heads of six elite banks warning that their “Net-Zero Banking Alliance” (NZBA) will force ESG policies that would have a “catastrophic impact” on farmers.

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Tennessee Ag Commissioner Charlie Hatcher Did Not Sign Letter by Officials in 12 States Accusing Banks of Pushing ESG on Farmers

Tom Pappert

The Tennessee Agriculture Commissioner, Dr. Charlie Hatcher, was not among the top agriculture officials from 12 different states who signed a letter on Monday that warned the heads of six elite banks that their “Net-Zero Banking Alliance” (NZBA) will force economically destructive Environmental, Social, Governance (ESG) policies on American farmers.

The Tennessee Star contacted Hatcher’s office by phone and email to ask why he was not among the agriculture officials behind the letter, and to ascertain whether he is concerned by the claim that banks are foisting ESG policies on farmers, but did not receive an immediate response.

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BlackRock Touting Tennessee Investments in X Advertisement

Peter D'Abrosca
Blackrock Ad

In an advertisement on X, formerly Twitter, the hedge fund BlackRock is touting its investments in the state of Tennessee.

“BlackRock invested in the future of Tennessee,” the ad says. “On behalf of our clients, BlackRock has invested over $36.5 billion in public companies across Tennessee and nearly 1 in 12 Tennesseans benefit from the public pensions we manage.” 

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Commentary: Tennesseans Deserve Investment Transparency

Admin

For the first time in the United States, an investment firm is being sued for its misleading Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) investment strategies, and our state is leading the charge.

Tennessee State Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti accused BlackRock, Inc. of deceiving Tennesseans by downplaying their ESG-related investment goals and pressuring corporate boards to do the same.

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Market Share for Green Bonds Slumped for Another Year Following Backlash

Admin
New York Stock Exchange

Bonds that consider environmental, social and governance (ESG) factors for their investors made up just 2% of all bond issuance in the U.S., the lowest point in terms of market share since 2020 after also declining in 2022, according to Bloomberg.

ESG bond issuance as a percentage of the market reached an all-time high in 2021 and is not expected by analysts to reach that same high in 2024 as interest rates make the bond market pricier and backlash to the ESG label inhibits sales, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. ESG has come under fire by conservatives who see it as a left-wing initiative infecting the financial world, most recently leading Ohio Republican Rep. Jim Jordan, chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, to send subpoenas to financial firms Vanguard, Arjuna Capital, BlackRock and State Street Global Advisors over alleged ESG collusion, arguing it violates antitrust law.

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Unmasking Academic Injustice: Dr. Carol Swain Reveals Deeper Impact on Scholarly Integrity amid Plagiarism Scandal at Harvard

Tennessee Star Staff
Carol Swain Harvard

Esteemed former Vanderbilt professor, renowned scholar, and all-star panelist Dr. Carol Swain joined The Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy on Tuesday to discuss the growing scandal involving Harvard’s Claudine Gay and increasingly difficult-to-defend allegations of plagiarism by the Ivy League school’s president.

Swain contends that Gay failed to credit her for sections of the book Black Faces, Black Interests, accusing her of derivative work since her dissertation, which Swain claims builds upon her own groundbreaking research.

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Tennessee A.G. Jonathan Skrmetti on His First-in-the-Nation Lawsuit Against BlackRock for Alleged Consumer Protection Violations

Tennessee Star Staff
TN AG Courtroom

Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti appeared in-studio on Tuesday’s edition of The Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy, to discuss the first-of-its-kind lawsuit his office filed Monday against financial services giant BlackRock over alleged violations of consumer protection laws.

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Tennessee A.G. Skrmetti Puts BlackRock on Notice About ESG: ‘It’s Not for Big Financial Companies to Decide What Policies Everybody in a Given Industry Should Follow’

Tennessee Star Staff
AG Skrmetti

Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti appeared in-studio on Tuesday’s edition of The Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy, where he laid out the reasons why BlackRock’s alleged double standards that they are pushing Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) initiatives that effectively force companies to shift their priorities are not just afoul consumer protection laws.

If left unchecked, Skrmetti argues, the opaque and unaccountable nature of corporate policymaking threatens the foundational principles of self-governance.

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Commentary: Republicans in Congress Need to Do More to Defund ESG

Admin

“Anti-woke economic terrorists have now wiped out $5 trillion in stock value.”

That was a headline from Afru.com bemoaning the sideways performance of Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) funds the past year or so, accusing anyone opposed to ESG with inflicting “economic terrorism” and “erod[ing] financial portfolios of color” as “global investments in ethical companies have nosedived by nearly $5 trillion over the past two years.”

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Commentary: Rumors of ESG’s Demise Are Greatly Exaggerated

Admin

Consumer and Republican backlash against Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) investments has increased dramatically in the past year as states, Congress and presidential candidates have taken on the issue, promising to rein in the largely green-conscious movement of capital amid spiraling energy and food costs since 2021.

Boycotts of brands such as Bud Light, Disney and Target, coupled with statements by Blackrock CEO Larry Fink that he no longer wanted to call these so-called sustainable investments ESG— at Aspen Ideas Festival on June 25 Fink said “I’m not going to use the word ESG because it’s been misused by the far left and the far right… we talk a lot about decarbonization, we talk a lot about governance … or social issues, if that’s something we need to address…”—and reported outflows from ESG funds in 2023 have painted a gloomy picture for green and socially conscious investing.

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Ivy League Business Schools to Offer ESG Majors and Courses in Fall, Despite Controversy

Admin

Despite the controversiality of the curriculum, business schools are still following the Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) initiative.

The Harvard Law School Forum on Corporate Governance defines ESG as an effort that “grew out of investment philosophies clustered around sustainability and, thereafter, socially responsible investing,” though “there is no single list of ESG goals or examples, and ESG concepts often overlap.”

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Commentary: BlackRock and Its ESG ‘Voting Choice’ Ruse

RealClearWire

Amid growing criticism of its environmental, social and governance (ESG) investment  practices, BlackRock has announced that it will offer retail investors in its largest exchange-traded fund (ETF) the opportunity to participate in its “Voting Choice” program. Open to institutional clients since January 2022, this program allows investors to choose from a limited set of options to guide BlackRock in voting their shares. While perhaps an effective PR tool, Voting Choice is little more than a ruse that neither empowers investors nor diminishes BlackRock’s power to impose its ESG goals on American businesses. 

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American Financial Titans Are Straying from Green Investment Strategies as GOP Pushback Mounts, Report Finds

Admin

Several leading American asset managers have decreased their support for environmental, social and governance (ESG) resolutions since 2021, according to a new report by InfluenceMap, a nonprofit that tracks climate policies in Western corporations.

InfluenceMap’s report assigned BlackRock, Vanguard, State Street and Fidelity environmental stewardship grades of C+ or lower, which indicates that each firm exhibits “a lack of effective climate stewardship processes and use of shareholder authority to engage companies to transition” to a green energy, net-zero carbon emissions future. The report also noted that 2022 saw a “considerable” drop in corporate support for ambitious green shareholder resolutions, a development that coincides with increased Republican scrutiny of corporate ESG policies and mandates.

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Iowa Congressman Zach Nunn Introduces Bill Aimed at Protecting Retirement Investments from Woke Politics

M.D. Kittle

Amid rising concerns about the liberal political agenda driving environmental, social and governance (ESG) investment decisions at the expense of retirement income, U.S. Representative Zach Nunn (R-IA-03) has introduced the “Protecting Retirees’ Savings Act.”

The bill, according to proponents, will help eliminate conflicts of interest for financial managers that cost investors by lowering investment returns.

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Commentary: SCOTUS’ Decision on Affirmative Action Could Spell Big Trouble for ESG’s ‘Diversity, Equity and Inclusion’ Hiring Quotas

Admin

It’s a simple ruling: “Eliminating racial discrimination means eliminating all of it.”

On June 29, the Supreme Court affirmed Title VI of the Civil Rights Act, 42 U.S. Code § 2000d’s prohibition on racial discrimination in federally funded programs, including higher education, at both public and private universities, in the Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard decision.

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Commentary: The International Energy Agency’s Net Zero Roadmap Will Increase Energy Costs

Admin

Two years ago, efforts by climate activists and Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) investors to block investment in oil and gas production by Western companies appeared to have received a seal of approval from no less an authority than the International Energy Agency (IEA), when it published Net Zero by 2050: A Roadmap for the Global Energy Sector. As a result, attempts to achieve net zero carbon emissions (NZE) by 2050 became central to the “E” in ESG and the IEA’s net zero roadmap has come to define the NZE baseline for energy companies.

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Commentary: Does Anyone Buy That the Head of BlackRock Is ‘Ashamed’ of ESG?

Admin

The big news in energy this week is that BlackRock CEO Larry Fink says he is no longer using the term “ESG” in his business communications. Even more, Mr. Fink is now “ashamed” to be a participant in the debate on the issue. At least, that’s what he initially said on Sunday to an audience at the Aspen Ideas Festival, where he was a speaker.

“I’m ashamed of being part of this conversation,” Fink said as quoted by Axios. But almost as soon as he made the admission, Fink took it all back when pressed by his session’s moderator. “I never said I was ashamed,” he said, even though he had just actually said that very thing. “I’m not ashamed. I do believe in conscientious capitalism.”

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Commentary: Hollywood Is Demoralizing Americans, One Story at a Time

Admin

As a young boy, I lived for a time under the rule of a totalitarian regime when visiting my parents’ homeland of Iran during the 1980s. It was only a few years after the Iranian Revolution of 1979, and the despotic new ruler, Ruhollah Khomeini, was investing heavily in his cultural propaganda machine. The Ayatollah’s dubious aim, like any new totalitarian, was to erase the proud culture of ancient Iran and replace it with one new and ideologically approved.

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Commentary: Energy Companies Are Finally Backtracking on Their Absurd Green Goals

Admin

Is the public finally waking up to the inherent absurdities taking place in the energy space in the U.S. and across the Western world in recent years? Recent votes taken on ESG and climate change-related shareholder initiatives at major oil company annual board meetings indicate that may well be the case.

Though it has received scant attention across the legacy news media in general, the Financial Times reported recently that such shareholder initiatives were overwhelmingly rejected by shareholders of both ExxonMobil and Chevron, with most receiving less than 10 percent support. Similar initiatives in the previous few years would typically generate support in the 30-40 percent range, with a handful even gaining majority support.

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Commentary: It’s Time to Take the Unnecessary Politics Out of ESG and Retirement Savings

RealClearWire
New York Stock Exchange

Increased politicization of “environmental, social and governance” (ESG) factors in investment has resulted in one side claiming it only promotes social and political objectives, and the other side claiming that ESG is always relevant to making sound investment decisions.
 

President Biden’s veto of a Congressional resolution, regarding recently finalized amendments to a 2020 Department of Labor (DOL) administrative rule on retirement security, has brought ESG to the forefront again. The DOL’s amendments address how fiduciaries of a person’s 401(k)s and private pension funds make decisions about their retirement savings and the role of ESG in making those investment decisions. The DOL, under ERISA (Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974), regulates private retirement plans. ERISA covers roughly $12 trillion in retirement savings for 150 million Americans. 

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Hobbs Vetoes Bill Banning Lending Through ESG Lens

The Center Square

Arizona Gov. Katie Hobbs has vetoed a bill seeking to establish that the state requires banks and other financial institutions to use a “social credit score” when making lending decisions concerning customers.

In rejecting the measure proposed by Rep. Steve Montenegro, R-Goodyear, Hobbs countered the legislation does not define “social credit score,” adding that ambiguity played a role in her making the decision to veto the bill.

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Arizona Legislature Threatens Legal Action Against NAAG Regarding Use of Funds

Neil Jones

Arizona State Legislators, House Speaker Ben Toma (R-Peoria) and Senate President Warren Petersen (R-Mesa) sent a letter to the National Association of Attorney Generals (NAAG) Wednesday, threatening legal action because of the association’s utilization of funding.

“It is time that Arizona’s laws and regulations start applying to NAAG and that this unaccountable slush fund activity stop now,” the legislators wrote in the joint letter. “At this point, litigation is reasonably likely between us. Consider this letter a litigation hold notice.”

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Florida’s Chief Financial Officer Warns NewsGuard Against ‘Disinformation’ Attack on Conservative Groups

M.D. Kittle

Jimmy Patronis, the state of Florida’s chief financial officer, is warning the top executives of a so-called “disinformation” tracking group it’s playing with fire in targeting conservative organizations in what has been described as a defunding campaign. In a letter to NewsGuard CEOs and Editors-in-Chiefs Steven Brill and Gordon Crovitz, Patronis warns that he will not hesitate to “use the full force” of his office to shed light on an organization that has financially hurt conservative outlets with its rating system. “In short, your enterprise may affect the finances of your clients through triggering Florida’s divestment laws, and it may be subject to legislative scrutiny in the upcoming legislative session,” Florida’s CFO wrote. As the Washington Examiner reported last month in its series, “Disinformation Inc.,” NewsGuard is part of a growing army of self-styled “disinformation tracking organizations that are cracking down on conservative media and part of a lucrative operation that aims to defund disfavored speech.” As the Examiner reported: Major ad companies are increasingly seeking guidance from purportedly “nonpartisan” groups claiming to be detecting and fighting online “disinformation.” These same “disinformation” monitors are compiling secret website blacklists and feeding them to ad companies, with the aim of defunding and…

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