Kerby Anderson

Major financial firms use ESG factors in their investment decisions, and the Biden administration has promoted ESG investment rules. According to major media reports, attempts to remove these requirements have failed. But the latest legislative scorecard shows that the anti-ESG movement is succeeding.

ESG stands for environmental, social, and corporate governance factors which have been used to push a leftwing agenda without asking Congress to implement what some have even called a “woke ideological agenda.”

Two years ago, the Texas legislature passed a law that bars the state from doing business with financial companies that favor renewable-energy firms over fossil fuels based on environmental reasons rather than financial reasons. Legislatures in other states have followed suit. More than two dozen states introduced anti-ESG bills. So far, eleven states have passed laws and implemented regulations.

The CEO of the State Financial Officers Foundation observed, “We’ve come in the last year and a half from nothing to having a quarter of the states passing stuff and half of the states engaging.”

You wouldn’t know this by reading articles in the mainstream press. A Washington Post article reported that the “conservative battle against woke banks is backfiring.” An article in another publication said the anti-ESG movement is full of hype but has “few big wins” in statehouses.

Now that Governor Ron DeSantis is running for the presidency, his Florida anti-ESG bill will probably get more attention. It prohibits the use of ESG criteria in investment decisions, government contracts, and local bonds. It also bars financial firms from discriminating against customers based on their religious, political, or social beliefs.

All of this suggests that the issue of ESG will become an important issue in the 2024 elections both at the national level and at the state level.