Dive Brief:
- The House Judiciary Committee sent letters to more than 130 U.S.-based companies, retirement systems and government pension funds that are members of Climate Action 100+, questioning their involvement in the group, the committee announced Tuesday.
- In addition to asking for the organizations’ documents on their ESG goals, involvement in the climate coalition and communications with other member institutions, the letters inquire about the entities’ plans to incorporate Climate Action 100+’s “Phase Two” requirements announced in June 2023.
- The questioning is part of the committee’s years-long probe into whether antitrust laws currently serve “to deter anticompetitive collusion to promote ESG-related goals.” In June, the committee published an interim report accusing climate groups and activists of “colluding” on decarbonization, a claim witnesses denied at a hearing the following day.
Dive Insight:
Climate Action 100+’s Phase Two requirements asks signatories to go beyond simple disclosure and “implement robust transition plans and to take action with a wider set of stakeholders to address the sectoral barriers to the net zero transition.”
These requirements also ask participating investors to submit an annual schedule of engagement specifying the climate action and escalation strategies they intend to implement.
The update spurred the exit of several high-profile financial institutions earlier this year, including JPMorgan Asset Management, State Street Global Advisors, the Pacific Investment Management Company and Invesco, while BlackRock downgraded its membership to a smaller international arm.
The letters — signed by House Judiciary Chair Jim Jordan and Rep. Thomas Massie, chair of the Administrative State, Regulatory Reform, and Antitrust Subcommittee — asked how the member institutions plan to “take action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions across the value chain,” as listed in the signatory handbook.
“The over 130 companies, retirement systems, and government pension programs with membership in Climate Action 100+ must answer for their involvement in prioritizing woke investments over their own fiduciary duties,” the committee’s release said.
The letters from the Ohio and Kentucky Republicans asked the entities what requests they will make of portfolio companies to have them reduce their value chain greenhouse gas emissions, as well as what tactics they will use to get those focus companies to comply with their requests. Finally, the letters asked for the entities’ plans to engage with a wider set of stakeholders to address sectoral net-zero transition barriers.
The letters went to organizations in 23 states and Washington, D.C. and included a formal request to preserve all existing and future records on the topic. Goldman Sachs Asset Management, Impax Asset Management, environmental group Sierra Club and the Service Employees International Union — which has nearly 2 million members in the U.S. and Canada — all found themselves on the receiving end of one of the committee’s letters.
The New York City Comptroller’s office, led by Brad Lander, also received a query. Lander, who filed shareholder proposals that led to Citibank, JPMorgan Chase and the Royal Bank of Canada disclosing their green financing ratios, announced this week his intention to take on Eric Adams and run for the Democratic nomination for mayor of New York City in 2025.
Unlocking America’s Future, a pro-ESG 501(c)4, derided the expanded Judiciary Committee probe, and Kyle Herrig, UAF spokesperson, said in a release that the probe “should not be taken seriously.” A poll of 1,000 registered voters commissioned by the group earlier this year found that 63% of respondents opposed a ban on investors and businesses utilizing ESG factors.
“This is a politically motivated effort to curry favor with the committee’s Big Oil donors,” Herrig said. “Poll after poll has shown that voters do not want Congress wasting time on these sham investigations.”
Herrig said the Judiciary Committee should focus its attention on “issues that matter to the American people.”
Jordan and Massie requested all organizations respond by Aug. 13.
