Governor DeSantis has taken the lead again against the woke agenda and the companies which support Marxist activism, while Governor Bill Lee remains silent.
DeSantis singled out the ESG investment movement saying it amounts to “the politicization of the economy.”
“It benefits the largest, most powerful corporations and it disadvantages the small and medium-sized businesses. And so, this is not something that is empowering, kinda, the little guy. You know, this is something that is, in many respects, crushing the little guy,” he said.
“You have a handful of people in Davos deciding all this, that this is how we’re supposed to live? Not on my watch. Not here in the state of Florida,” he said.
Florida along with 18 other Republican State Attorneys General drafted a letter to Laurence D. Fink, the CEO of BlackRock Inc., regarding their ESG policies.
BlackRock, the world’s largest asset manager, manages $10 trillion of assets. The letter accuses BlackRock of making decisions based on its alleged political agenda rather than the welfare of state pensions.
BlackRock came to the attention of Republicans in 2020 when they announced in January it was divesting from coal burned in power plants. Its global head of sustainable investing, Brian Deese, was a White House climate official under former President Barack Obama.
“Considering BlackRock’s central role as a Federal Reserve fiduciary for the distribution of CARES Act credit facilities, its hostility towards the American energy sector is unacceptable and should be closely scrutinized,” the lawmakers wrote.
BlackRock has continued to stay top of mind as Americans realized how many companies BlackRock has stakes in, and the dangers of such a consolidation of power.
And now we have BlackRock making news again as they continue their activism against the energy sector. As the second paragraph in the Attorney General letter states,
“Based on the facts currently available to us, BlackRock appears to use the hard-earned money of our states’ citizens to circumvent the best possible return on investment, as well as their vote. BlackRock’s past public commitments indicate that it has used citizens’ assets to pressure companies to comply with international agreements such as the Paris Agreement that force the phase-out of fossil fuels, increase energy prices, drive inflation, and weaken the national security of the United States. These agreements have never been ratified by the United States Senate. The Senators elected by the citizens of this country determine which international agreements have the force of law, not BlackRock.”
Our Tennessee Attorney General, however, is conspicuously absent from the letter. And Governor Lee is conspicuously quiet and not taking a strong stance on this issue.
It has conservatives across Tennessee asking, “why?”
In June, The Tennessee Star wrote an article reporting that Sixteen Republican governors, with Tennessee Governor Bill Lee not among them, sent the Biden administration and the SEC a letter on telling them to back off a proposed “climate change” disclosure regulation.
The letter said,
“The proposed rule will harm businesses and investors in our states by increasing compliance costs and by larding disclosure statements with uncertain and immaterial information that the federal government—let alone the SEC—is not equipped to judge,” they continue. “We strongly urge you to withdraw the proposed rule and allow the market to continue serving as the appropriate mechanism for judging climate risk, as it does for other types of market risks.”
Why would a Republican Governor not want to support other Republican Governors who are vying for limited government against intrusive federal policies?
We have seen Governor Lee’s silence before on important issues facing Tennesseans.
When Tennesseans were losing jobs to unconstitutional federal mandates and looked to the Governor to hold a special session to help them, they were met with silence. Governor Lee instead held a special session to give the woke Ford Motor Company a “nearly $900 million spending package aimed at clearing the way for Ford Motor Company’s $5.6 billion investment into an electric vehicle and battery factory in West Tennessee.”
Many Tennesseans were upset that the Governor prioritized giving their tax dollars to Ford over doing his actual job, protecting their God-given rights. It led to Tennessee Stands leading a “Freedom Over Ford” campaign, which persuaded the legislature to call for a special session in the absence of one from Governor Lee. It resulted in the omnibus legislation which protected many Tennesseans from unconstitutional federal overreach and medical mandates. It is worth noting that some of those protections are set to sunset if the legislation is not amended in 2023.
Ford wasn’t happy that the state they had just received millions from, was catering to its conservative constituents, and demanded the legislature continue to allow their company the ability to mask their employees. They hadn’t even broken ground in Tennessee yet, and the woke company was already demanding authority from their new Tennessee partners.
Ford is in-line with BlackRock’s ESG demands.
Demands from these organizations do not seem to apply to the rule-makers. Will the elites stop flying in jets to curb carbon emissions? Will they see a carbon tax instituted on their activities to push the net zero carbon goals companies like BlackRock demand?
Likely not. Such demands appear only to be made on we the people, as we saw from all the “rules for thee, not for me” COVID regulations
Why have Governor Lee and our Attorney General not joined the other GOP governors against such woke policies and the use of pensions to fund activism? Wouldn’t it be better to divert the investments of Tennesseans to companies that align with the values of Tennesseans?
Well, a quick scan of the treasury retirement document shows investments in Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, Facebook, Tesla, and Johnson & Johnson to name a few. No shortage of woke activism represented there. Tesla and Ford. Electric Car Mega Sites. Perhaps there is a reason Governor Lee has been silent on ESG policies.
Governor DeSantis takes the lead again, while Governor Lee remains silent on ESG.
Governor DeSantis has taken the lead again against the woke agenda and the companies which support Marxist activism, while Governor Bill Lee remains silent.
DeSantis singled out the ESG investment movement saying it amounts to “the politicization of the economy.”
“You have a handful of people in Davos deciding all this, that this is how we’re supposed to live? Not on my watch. Not here in the state of Florida,” he said.
Florida along with 18 other Republican State Attorneys General drafted a letter to Laurence D. Fink, the CEO of BlackRock Inc., regarding their ESG policies.
BlackRock, the world’s largest asset manager, manages $10 trillion of assets. The letter accuses BlackRock of making decisions based on its alleged political agenda rather than the welfare of state pensions.
BlackRock came to the attention of Republicans in 2020 when they announced in January it was divesting from coal burned in power plants. Its global head of sustainable investing, Brian Deese, was a White House climate official under former President Barack Obama.
“Considering BlackRock’s central role as a Federal Reserve fiduciary for the distribution of CARES Act credit facilities, its hostility towards the American energy sector is unacceptable and should be closely scrutinized,” the lawmakers wrote.
BlackRock has continued to stay top of mind as Americans realized how many companies BlackRock has stakes in, and the dangers of such a consolidation of power.
And now we have BlackRock making news again as they continue their activism against the energy sector. As the second paragraph in the Attorney General letter states,
Our Tennessee Attorney General, however, is conspicuously absent from the letter. And Governor Lee is conspicuously quiet and not taking a strong stance on this issue.
It has conservatives across Tennessee asking, “why?”
In June, The Tennessee Star wrote an article reporting that Sixteen Republican governors, with Tennessee Governor Bill Lee not among them, sent the Biden administration and the SEC a letter on telling them to back off a proposed “climate change” disclosure regulation.
The letter said,
Why would a Republican Governor not want to support other Republican Governors who are vying for limited government against intrusive federal policies?
We have seen Governor Lee’s silence before on important issues facing Tennesseans.
When Tennesseans were losing jobs to unconstitutional federal mandates and looked to the Governor to hold a special session to help them, they were met with silence. Governor Lee instead held a special session to give the woke Ford Motor Company a “nearly $900 million spending package aimed at clearing the way for Ford Motor Company’s $5.6 billion investment into an electric vehicle and battery factory in West Tennessee.”
Many Tennesseans were upset that the Governor prioritized giving their tax dollars to Ford over doing his actual job, protecting their God-given rights. It led to Tennessee Stands leading a “Freedom Over Ford” campaign, which persuaded the legislature to call for a special session in the absence of one from Governor Lee. It resulted in the omnibus legislation which protected many Tennesseans from unconstitutional federal overreach and medical mandates. It is worth noting that some of those protections are set to sunset if the legislation is not amended in 2023.
Ford wasn’t happy that the state they had just received millions from, was catering to its conservative constituents, and demanded the legislature continue to allow their company the ability to mask their employees. They hadn’t even broken ground in Tennessee yet, and the woke company was already demanding authority from their new Tennessee partners.
Ford is in-line with BlackRock’s ESG demands.
Demands from these organizations do not seem to apply to the rule-makers. Will the elites stop flying in jets to curb carbon emissions? Will they see a carbon tax instituted on their activities to push the net zero carbon goals companies like BlackRock demand?
Likely not. Such demands appear only to be made on we the people, as we saw from all the “rules for thee, not for me” COVID regulations
Why have Governor Lee and our Attorney General not joined the other GOP governors against such woke policies and the use of pensions to fund activism? Wouldn’t it be better to divert the investments of Tennesseans to companies that align with the values of Tennesseans?
Well, a quick scan of the treasury retirement document shows investments in Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, Facebook, Tesla, and Johnson & Johnson to name a few. No shortage of woke activism represented there. Tesla and Ford. Electric Car Mega Sites. Perhaps there is a reason Governor Lee has been silent on ESG policies.
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Danielle Goodrich
Danielle Goodrich