via dailywire:
Critics of the ESG movement largely align with conservatives and assert that the philosophy intermixes political and social causes in a manner that compromises or distracts from profitability. Beshear signed a bill last week to require fiduciaries of the state’s retirement funds to only consider factors which have a “direct and material connection to the financial risk or financial return of an investment” rather than any “environmental, social, political, or ideological interest” without a connection to the financial realities of an asset.
Beshear, who won an upset victory four years ago in the predominantly Republican state, is presently campaigning for a second term; the general election will occur at the end of the year.
Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) and Sen. Jon Tester (D-MT), both of whom will be on their respective ballots in primarily Republican states next year, recently voted against fellow Democrats to pass a resolution scrapping a White House rule that allows retirement fiduciaries to invest in accordance with the ESG movement. President Joe Biden vetoed the resolution last week.
American investors are broadly skeptical of the ESG movement and desire that their funds are allocated in a politically neutral manner.
PUSHBACK: 21 States Threaten Banks with Legal Action Over Woke Policies.
EXCLUSIVE: A coalition of 21 state attorneys general sent a stark warning to dozens of financial institutions and asset managers, warning them against pursuing woke environmental and social initiatives.
In a letter sent Thursday to 53 of the nation’s largest financial institutions, which collectively manage trillions of dollars worth of assets, the attorneys general threatened to take legal action if the firms veer from the best interests of their clients while pushing social priorities. The effort, led by Montana, Utah and Louisiana, comes ahead of proxy season during which most companies hold annual shareholder meetings where they vote on key policy initiatives.
“This ESG nonsense is filtering into a lot of our states and the way they’re doing it is really, really concerning and probably flagrantly illegal,” Montana Attorney General Austin Knudsen told Fox News Digital in an interview. “Pushing it through these asset managers and through these proxy votes is extremely concerning.”