The U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) is finalizing a rule allowing companies to prioritize ESG policies when choosing retirement plans. It’s the last phase of a nearly two-year effort to reverse a Trump-era rule banning the practice.
The department said it was implementing the rule to “remove barriers to plan fiduciaries’ ability to consider climate change and other environmental, social, and governance factors when they select investments and exercise shareholder rights.”
Both the chief financial heads of Texas and Florida, and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, have taken action against ESG, an environmental, social, governance social credit score system, from being implemented in their states.
After hearing of the DOL’s latest announcement, Texas Comptroller Glenn Hegar said President Joe Biden was “using unelected bureaucrats … to push his radical ESG agenda, undermine the Texas economy and jeopardize our national security and energy independence.
“Even as free market forces begin to erode the ESG fairy tale and expose the intellectual dishonesty and utter lack of transparency in this investment scam, President Biden is using the DOL rulemaking process to double down on policies that put his social agenda above the retirement needs of hard-working Americans.”
The rule, “Prudence and Loyalty in Selecting Plan Investments and Exercising Shareholder Rights,” follows an executive order Biden issued last May. His order directed the federal government to…
