Defend Our Rights To Invest In ESG!

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Dear IFB Community,

For the first time we are reaching out to you, our community, to ask you to take political action.  We don’t do this lightly, but we do it with the conviction that this is in complete alignment with who we are as a community and a movement.

As part of the attacks on ESG (and many of you attended Andy Behar’s session for us on this topic last month), an important vote was narrowly passed by the US House and Senate this week and is heading to President Biden’s desk where he is expected to veto it.  Let’s make sure he knows that he’s got the support of the majority of all Americans to do it (including 70% of Republicans)!

The US Senate passed House Joint Resolution 30 (H.J. Res 30), the Congressional Review Act (CRA) Resolution to overturn the U.S. Department of Labor’s (DOL) final rule on “Prudence and Loyalty in Selecting Plan Investments and Exercising Shareholder Rights.” This change would make it extremely difficult for the fiduciaries who manage our pension and retirement funds to consider risks related to climate change, gender inequities, poor working conditions, and other elements of ESG (environmental, social, governance) analysis in their investment decisions. In other words, the change severely restricts our opportunity to invest our retirement accounts the way we want.

Invest for Better supports the statement made by Bryan McGannon, Managing Director of US SIF: The Forum for Sustainable and Responsible Investment:

“We urge the President to quickly veto the resolution and allow the marketplace to continue to fulfill their fiduciary duty to plan participants and meet the growing demand for sustainable offerings in retirement plans. The Department of Labor’s ESG rule is a sensible policy allowing retirement plan fiduciaries to consider all financially relevant information when making investment decisions. This benefits plan participants and it ends the retirement policy pendulum between administrations.”

Please take a minute to send an email supporting a veto to the White House using this link. In her email, Janine said, “I am emailing to support the President in vetoing House Joint Resolution 30 because I want the fiduciaries of my retirement funds to integrate ESG criteria into their investment decisions, and I know that most investors want that freedom of choice as well.”

Thank you,
Ellen and Janine