BlackRock Inc., an investment company with greater than $8 trillion of assets under management gave their largest political contribution to Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY).
“Oh what a coincidence that Chuck Schumer was the single biggest recipient of ESG heavyweight @BlackRock contributions in the 2022 cycle,” remarked the American Accountability Foundation in a Wednesday Twitter post.
The Senate majority leader reportedly received $113, 950 through last year, according to the group.
Republicans, allied with a few Senate Democrats, approved a measure to remove a Labor Department rule allowing retirement fiduciaries to allocate funds by factoring in environmental, social and corporate governance. Both the House and Senate, despite opposition from Schumer, approved resolutions opposed to the rule destined to die a quick death by presidential veto.
“ESG opponents are trying to turn it into a dirty acronym, deploying attacks they’ve used for elements of a so-called woke agenda,” Schumer said in a Twitter post. “They call ESG wokeness. They call it a cult. They call it an incursion into free markets. ”
“I say ESG is just common sense,” the New York Democrat opined above a link to his Wall Street Journal op/ed declaring Republicans ought to support ESG.
BlackRock is a huge advocate for the ESG movement. The financial behemoth has experienced recent outflows from states showing displeasure with ESG principles governing investment decisions.
While Schumer raked in the most bucks from Black Rock, both parties receive sizeable donations from the investment company. BlackRock donated $639,000 to Republicans and $453,000 to Democrats in the midterm election, according to a report from The Daily Wire.
Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-GA) and Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) were reportedly the second and third largest recipients of BlackRock largesse, according to the report.
Former President Donald Trump’s Labor Department issued a rule barring fund managers from “selecting investments based on non-pecuniary considerations.” The DOL further required the money managers to solely “base investment decisions on financial factors.”
The Trump administration’s ban of ESG investment policies will be replaced with a newly proposed Biden administration rule to reverse the Trump prohibition. Under the proposed Biden rule, investment managers may weigh “the economic effects of climate change and other ESG considerations” when they are relevant to a risk-and-return analysis.
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