Nearly two dozen states on Tuesday warned CEOs of the nation’s largest financial firms – including BlackRock’s Larry Fink and JPMorgan’s Jamie Dimon – to scrap “woke investing” programs focused on environmental goals if they want to continue doing business in their states.
Letters signed by 26 state financial officers hit the desks of top bosses at BNY Mellon, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, Fidelity Investments, State Street and Vanguard.
State officials ordered these firms to take five concrete actions to demonstrate their “commitment to a fiduciary model grounded in financial integrity, not political advocacy.”
Among these steps is a commitment to abstain from “international political agendas” like net-zero climate mandates or the EU’s Corporate Sustainability Directive, which requires companies to regularly publish reports on the environmental and social risks they face.
In the letters, leaders of red states slammed the erosion of “traditional fiduciary duty” in favor of ESG investing, or the environmental, social and governance goals of financial firms.
“While some firms have recently taken encouraging steps, such as withdrawing from global climate coalitions and scaling back ESG rhetoric and proxy votes, and some states have permitted incremental reintegration, more work must be done,” officials said in a copy of the letter obtained by The Post.
“Our responsibility is to ensure public assets are managed in the best financial interest of beneficiaries and taxpayers. We expect detailed evidence that your firm’s investment practices, proxy voting and corporate engagement behavior…align with traditional fiduciary standards.”
Officials from 21 states – including Alabama, Arizona, Iowa, Nebraska, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania and Utah – demanded that CEOs respond to the letter’s demands by September 1. Some states have more than one official represented on the letters.
The letters come after Texas last month removed BlackRock, the world’s largest asset manager, from its blacklist.
For nearly three years, BlackRock was banned from doing business with Texas state pension and investment funds, which hold an estimated $50 billion in assets, over its climate policies.
BlackRock earlier this year rolled back some of its environmental goals, exiting the Climate Action 100+ investor group and withdrawing from the Net Zero Asset Managers initiative.
The company, however, is still engaging in some practices that seek to restrict fossil fuel output, according to a report from the American Energy Institute and Consumers’ Research, a conservative nonprofit.
While Texas may have let up the pressure on BlackRock, these 21 states are doubling down on calls for financial firms to eradicate ESG goals.
“Requiring America’s financial giants to prove their independence from woke ideology with concrete steps before doing business with a state’s dollars is fully necessary and just makes sense,” OJ Oleka, CEO of State Financial Officers Foundation, said in a statement.
“For too long, firms like BlackRock have followed the ESG gospel to the legal breaking point of violating their traditional fiduciary duty and putting Americans’ retirement savings at risk.”
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