Watch: Katie Porter mocks GOP at House hearing for portraying investment firm as a ‘commie organization’
Rep. Katie Porter (D-CA) ridiculed Republican objections to block a leading investment firm from imposing its own standards on utility companies to cut emissions linked to climate change.
A group of Republican attorneys general filed a motion this week to block BlackRock, the world's leading asset manager, from forcing utilities to comply with their environmental, social and governmental (ESG) policies on fossil fuels and emissions, and Porter needled one of them during a House Oversight Committee hearing.
"Environmental, social, and governance disclosures give those investors the information to take that into account, and it's not just progressives," Porter said to Alabama attorney general Steve Marshall. "Plenty of conservatives have dumped their stock in Disney or stopped buying Bud Lite because they think they're too woke. Mr. Marshall, if a company became less woke based on market pressures, would you take legal action against them as AG?"
After some back-and-forth, Marshall said his office would have to evaluate whether a corporation had made decisions they lacked authority to make before suing and Porter explained that BlackRock's ESG disclosures had no enforcement mechanism but were simply guidelines for investors to consider.
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"The Labor Department's rule does not impose a mandate, it permits fiduciaries to consider ESG standards if they believe those considerations are prudent in their decision-making and what the information is they want to provide investors," Porter said. "There's no mandate under the Department of Labor, and I think these antitrust concerns are at best misplaced. There is simply no evidence that there is a violation of the Sherman Act going on. There's no evidence this is what's happening. It is up to each of these companies, so these initiatives are no different than other initiatives that corporations have that come together. They are private actors making their decisions."
"It strains credulity for me to hear people suggest that BlackRock is some sort of lefty commie organization," she added. "For crying out loud, BlackRock is about delivering value and in doing that they are looking at different kinds of propositions about value, including good governance, including the effect that climate change may have on their bottom line. That's the whole point. This is about freedom, that's what we're talking about. Capitalism delivers freedom, and that happens when markets let people choose what they want. That's all that you're trying to block here. You're trying to block people from looking at disclosures that they find valuable. If they don't find them valuable, don't look at them. I think capitalism is about choices. I heard you say you do, too, so I hope you'll reconsider your policy."
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