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Unlocking America’s Future Weekly Wrap-Up: UAF Launches Campaign Exposing Greedy Corporations Behind ESG Bans and Project 2025

September 27, 2024

This week in responsible investing, UAF launched two new ad campaigns. The first exposes who’s really behind anti-ESG legislation and Project 2025 and the second campaign focuses on North Carolina by targeting the politicians behind anti-ESG laws in the state and holding them accountable. And finally, the House Financial Services Committee wasted resources attacking the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission’s climate risk disclosure rule. Read more below: 

UAF launched a new campaign exposing who’s behind ESG bans and Project 2025.

From UAF’s release: “Project 2025 is backed by millions of dollars from the same right-wing extremists, billionaires in the oil and gas industry, and greedy corporations who are trying to ban responsible investing. These ads will educate the American people about the fact that ESG bans are part of the same agenda as the dangerous and extreme Project 2025 plan, which is an assault on Americans’ rights and freedoms, and threatens the financial security of taxpayers.” 

UAF also released polling, first revealed in Bloomberg, on the public’s views on the connections between Project 2025 and ESG bans: 

  • Voters oppose a ban on ESG investing by 43% to 29%, and twice as many strongly oppose (26%) as strongly support (13%). Notably, 28% initially do not express an opinion about a ban, highlighting the urgency for opponents of bans to frame the debate for voters.  
  • Voters anticipate that banning ESG investing will have a net negative impact on future generations (17-point net negative impact), average consumers (18-point net negative impact), the middle class (16-point net negative impact), and climate change (20-point net negative impact). 
  • When voters hear that the people who are pushing ESG bans are the same people behind Project 2025, 66% say it makes them more concerned about efforts to ban ESG investing. 

The campaign was also highlighted in Politico’s Morning Sustainability tipsheet: A pro-ESG nonprofit is turning up the heat in key states ahead of November’s election. Unlocking America’s Future is releasing a seven-figure digital ad buy today in Pennsylvania, Georgia and Michigan aiming to connect Project 2025 with the politicians and industries that support bans on environmental, social and governance principles. It comes the same week as a new campaign UAF launched in North Carolina targeting Republican state lawmakers who overrode Gov. Roy Cooper’s veto of a law that limits the use of ESG in the state treasurer’s investments.

This work builds on UAF’s recent report demonstrating how Project 2025 puts the financial security of Americans at risk.  

UAF launched a new campaign in North Carolina to hold politicians accountable for their anti-ESG positions.

From UAF’s release: Unlocking America’s Future is launching a new campaign in North Carolina to hold lawmakers accountable for supporting the enormous risks of H750, an anti-ESG law passed in 2023. The campaign includes a statewide six-figure digital buy and new research that exposes how State Rep. Bill Ward (NC-05), Rep. Allen Chesser (NC-25), Rep. Ken Fontenot (NC-24), and other supporters of the bill have sided with out-of-state billionaires and right-wing extremist groups instead of the constituents they claim to represent. The new report delves into how the law restricts the North Carolina State Treasurer from considering “environmental or social considerations” for state investments, essentially implementing an ESG ban. The research also exposes the Big Oil interests behind the bill, including public support from right wing, Koch-backed groups like Heritage Action and organizations associated with rightwing judicial activist Leonard Leo.

A former Alamo, Texas Chamber of Commerce leader wrote an op-ed noting that anti-ESG policies harm Texas public schools.

From the op-ed: The anti-ESG crusade has reached Texas public education. As the former Alamo Chamber of Commerce head, I know well that strong educational institutions make for solid economies. So when extremist legislation deals blow after blow to our public school teachers, our higher education, and our state economy, I draw the line.

The House Financial Services Committee wasted time and resources in a congressional hearing attacking the US Securities and Exchange Commission’s climate risk disclosure rule.

From UAF’s statement: Led by Chairman Patrick McHenry (NC-10), who has taken hundreds of thousands of dollars in campaign contributions from Big Oil, the hearing was a platform for extreme politicians to double down on harmful misinformation around responsible investing and climate risk disclosures, and fear monger the SEC from supporting a more transparent, risk-averse financial system. 

ESG Dive and Investment News covered UAF’s pushback on so-called “Anti-Woke Week” held last week in the House.

From Investment News: An advocacy group for ESG standards and sustainable investing, Unlocking America’s Future, characterized the Republican campaign as an effort backed by fossil fuel interests.

“Trump and his Project 2025 backers have developed a secretive blueprint backed by greedy oil and gas billionaires to ban the American people and business owners from being able to invest responsibly,” group spokesman Kyle Herrig said in statement provided by email. “Their plans will hurt Americans’ retirement savings and cost them more in taxes. We will ensure that these plans don’t become a reality.”

From ESG Dive: Rep. Bill Huizenga, R-Mich, called the passage of H.R. 4790 “a culmination of almost two years of work by House Republicans” in a Thursday press release. However, neither bill is likely to go anywhere in the Democrat-controlled Senate, as Reps. Sean Casten and Juan Vargas, respectively of Illinois and California, acknowledged Friday. 

“The good thing is, these bills are going nowhere,” Vargas said in a Friday morning briefing hosted by pro-ESG 501(c)4 Unlocking America’s Future.

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