Three state officials took to Congress to debate the dangerous effects of ESG on Americans’ retirement funds, but that apparently wasn’t newsworthy enough for the woke activists at the ABC, CBS and NBC evening news shows who completely ignored the hearing.
Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall, Utah Attorney General Sean Reyes and Illinois State Treasurer Michael Frerichs testified before the House Oversight Committee May 10 to address the dangers of corporate giants forcing environmental, social, and governance (ESG) standards on the U.S. economy.
During this hearing, Reyes named and shamed key players such as Climate Action 100+ and the Glasgow Financial Alliance for Net Zero participating in “horizontal agreements” to use “tens of trillions in assets” to pressure American companies, raise prices, and hurt American consumers.
Reyes and Marshall also hammered ESG proponents for simply letting down those who trusted them with their money. They pointed out that money managers and proxy voters promoting ESG investing not only manipulate their clients for a bad cause, but also fail at their primary fiduciary duty: making money for their clients.
Reyes cited a study showing that “over the past five years global ESG funds have underperformed the broader markets by 250 basis points per year, an average 6.3% return compared with a 8.9% return.”
None of this apparently concerned ABC’s World News Tonight, NBC Nightly News or CBS Evening News, which devoted their May 10 evening news coverage to other issues, such as the 147th Westminister Dog Show, interviewing former Governor Asa Hutchinson (R-AR) and providing wall-to-wall coverage for Congressman George Santos (R-NY).
By bypassing the hearing, the networks kept their viewers from hearing Reyes’ disturbing testimony to Congressman Paul Gosar (R-AZ) that the same transition to “clean energy” that these horizontal organizations are accelerating is occurring too fast and threatening our electric grid.
Echoing Reyes’ concerns, Marshall denounced these leftist companies’ “anticompetitive conduct” and said that even the Biden Administration has acknowledged “that ESG action is subject to antitrust laws.” Marshall explained that the ESG-obsessed entities coordinated to pressure companies to implement ESG policy objectives or risk their investment prospects.
Reyes hammered these ESG proponents putting our grid at risk and referred to their data as “window-dressing.” He said, “you can have all the data in the world, but when that data is driven to one particular outcome and its predetermined outcome and there is a cabal of players who are all pushing towards that one outcome then the data is just window dressing to achieve that particular outcome.”
After a followup question, Reyes added that he agrees that the data that ESG-obsessed companies exploit to push woke policies is manipulated.
When Congressman Glenn Grothman (R-WI) questioned Marshall about potential discrimination resulting from ESG investing. Marshall added that ESG proponents are targeting important types of fertilizer and will likely pressure American farmers to abandon them, which has had devastating effects in other countries like Sri Lanka. Marshall went on to discuss how banks could be pressured to lend or not to lend to people or companies based on their beliefs or background. Marshall agreed with Rep. Grothman that ESG investing promotes discrimination, particularly against men and “people of a European background.”
Why are the big three networks so uninterested in the dangers of ESG; potential violations of fiduciary duty; potential violations of antitrust law and threats to the electrical grid? It may be their leftist bias. It may be the fact that prominent pro-ESG firms such as Blackrock and Vanguard are major investors in all three of the parent companies of the big three networks.
Conservatives are under attack! Contact ABC News (818) 460-7477, CBS News (212) 975-3247 and NBC News (212) 664-6192 and demand they report on the dangers of ESG.
