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Biden’s Woke Investment Rule Stays Intact As House Fails To Override Veto

   DailyWire.com
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Celal Gunes/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images

Members of the House failed Thursday to override the veto issued by President Joe Biden which overturned their resolution to nix a Labor Department rule supportive of the environmental, social, and corporate governance movement, also known as ESG.

The Labor Department issued a final rule in November which permits retirement fiduciaries to consider climate change and other ESG factors “when they make investment decisions and when they exercise shareholder rights, including voting on shareholder resolutions and board nominations.” Republicans and a handful of Democrats in the House and Senate voted earlier this month to overturn the rule; their resolution was nevertheless vetoed by Biden on Monday.

Lawmakers could have overturned the veto with supermajorities in both chambers; the resolution failed to meet the threshold in the House on Thursday in a vote of 219-200.

“With his veto, the President once again insists on undermining the financial security of the very people who elected him,” Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-NC) said in remarks ahead of the vote. “Republicans will stand with American workers and retirees in protecting their savings. ESG investing puts the future of millions of Americans in jeopardy when they are already facing economic hardships and inflation brought on by this administration’s reckless spending.”

The final rule from the Labor Department overturns a previous rule created by former President Donald Trump, which prevented “fiduciaries from selecting investments based on non-pecuniary considerations” and required them to “base investment decisions on financial factors” alone. Skeptics of the ESG movement contend that the investment philosophy intermixes political and social causes, such as decreasing carbon emissions or diversifying company leadership with respect to race or sex, in a manner that compromises or distracts from profitability.

Members of the House had voted 216-204 earlier this month in favor of the resolution to eliminate the Biden administration rule, while members of the Senate approved the resolution 50-46. Sen. Jon Tester (D-MT) and Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV), both of whom face reelection campaigns next year in broadly conservative states, voted to advance the measure, while Rep. Jared Golden (D-ME) also voted for the resolution and joined the attempt to overturn the veto.

“West Virginians are under increasing stress as we continue to recover from a once in a generation pandemic, pay the bills amid record inflation, and face the largest land war in Europe since World War II,” Manchin said after the veto. “The administration’s unrelenting campaign to advance a radical social and environmental agenda is only exacerbating these challenges.”

American investors are broadly wary of the ESG movement and desire that their retirement funds are allocated in a politically neutral manner. An exclusive poll from The Daily Wire showed last year that 64% of respondents believe “individual investors whose savings are being invested” should decide whether funds are appropriated according to ESG standards, while a mere 20% believe that “Wall Street asset managers” should make such decisions.

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Republicans had considered the resolution a rebuke of the White House’s recent nods toward the ESG movement. Biden, on the other hand, claimed on Monday that the “Republican-led resolution would force retirement managers to ignore” risk factors such as climate change, as well as spurn “the principles of free markets” and harm the retirement savings of households.

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