How ESG threatens you

Radical activists use ESG policies to manipulate businesses, then use businesses to manipulate the rest of us. While supposedly about responsible Environmental, Social, and Governance policies, what ESG really does is cost you money in higher prices, fewer jobs, and a worse outlook for our economic future.

The greatest risks are in energy, from the electricity that powers our technology to the gasoline and related fuels that still make nearly all our transportation networks possible. The price of all goods and services is partly determined by the cost of energy. And a collapse in the power grid quickly becomes a threat to human lives.

ESG campaigners don’t care, insisting on “goals” to eliminate established fuels in the near future. They also demand biased hiring practices where race, sex, and other categories are more important than competence and skill. Even being pro-abortion is sometimes lumped in as an ESG goal.

Some ESG policies are distractions or even marketing gimmicks. Others do real economic harm to all of us. Economist Paul Mueller has written that ESG goals “are often counter to the interests of shareholders and large segments of society.”

States are winning against ESG

Officials and legislators in more than half the states have taken actions to protect workers, savers, and retirees from misguided ESG policies. It is critical to keep that pressure on.

In 2023, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signed legislation that prohibits state and local agencies from using ESG factors when investing, contracting, or issuing bonds. It also prohibits banks from discriminating against customers based on religious or political beliefs or using any kind of “social credit scores.”

That same year, attorneys general from 21 states threatened legal action against 53 financial firms if they put their own politics ahead of the interests of their clients. Oklahoma State Treasurer Todd Russ took action to ban 13 giant banks, like BlackRock and Bank of America, for their boycotts of energy companies. And Russ along with 33 other state finance officials are opposing the Biden administration’s move to penalize homebuyers with good credit in the name of “equity.”

ESG versus national security

A research paper published by the Duke Financial Economics Center found that ESG ratings and investing ignored human rights abuses in Russia and likely other nations. Reuters likewise reported in 2022 about ESG investment firms ignoring abuses by China and Russia. In fact, while Russia was preparing to invade Ukraine, ESG rating firms like Sustainalytics were applauding Russia’s largest bank for its ESG-related policies.

This creates an uneven playing field for American businesses, where they are held to higher standards than companies located in (and often controlled by) our foreign adversaries. But it gets worse.

A former head of NATO warned in 2014 that Russia was supporting environmental groups in the West as a way to maintain dependence on Russian oil. Hillary Clinton raised the same concerns as Secretary of State. The New York Times has also reported on suspected Russian support for environmental protests abroad. ESG provides a moving set of standards that can be applied to American and other Western businesses to reduce their competitiveness.

ESG policies often benefit other nations at the expense of the United States. They also can become a tool used by foreign adversaries to weaken America and our allies.