The Republican Party will leverage its newly won majority in the House to relieve U.S. investment firms from the burden of the woke agenda. Conservative representatives lashed out against measures that are turning companies "into social laboratories" to the detriment of their businesses. They announced that they will force the heads of large companies to appear before the House of Representatives to expose their adherence to the woke agenda.
Republican representatives intend to stand up to the Biden Administration's attempts to impose environmental and social initiatives on the banking sector, including mandatory disclosure of climate risks. Sen. Pat Toomey, who will leave his seat in January, said, "Some of my colleagues are pressuring banks to use both their balance sheets and their influence to address issues wholly unrelated to banking, such as global warming, gun control, voter rights, and abortion. Several large banks have been far too willing to acquiesce to these demands by embracing a liberal ESG agenda that harms America."
"Liberal agenda operating on the fringes of democracy."
In this regard, Republican Rep. Andy Barr, who is on the shortlist to chair the House Financial Services subcommittee, called out BlackRock, State Street, Vanguard, Invesco and Fidelity. The representative called to "stop this nonsense of politicizing capital allocation through ESG." Barr further claimed that ESG, which stands for Environmental, Social, and Governance, is "the weaponization of financial regulation designed to discriminate against American energy companies."
ESG threatens investors with lower financial returns and jeopardizes our energy supply by curtailing investments in American energy production.
— Rep. Andy Barr (@RepAndyBarr) November 15, 2022
His colleague Patrick McHenry, another of those rumored to be a possible chairman of the subcommittee, criticized the double standard of companies bowing down to the woke agenda while calling for free markets. "My members are intent on sending a message that you can't kowtow to a far-left agenda and still have Republicans fighting the good fight on behalf of free markets and a marketplace that would benefit these companies," he said.
"Social laboratories"
Even more forceful was fellow Republican Rep. Blaine Luetkemeyer, who called on these companies to "push back on some of this woke stuff and the social justice stuff, so they go back to doing their business instead of being social laboratories."
To this end, Barr announced his party's intentions: "We want these mutual fund companies, ETF [exchange-traded fund] companies, the members of the ICI [Investment Company Institute trade group] to come before Congress and tell us how they're going to change course and start prioritizing investor returns again, instead of promoting this fraud of ESG."
