US senator pushing ESG revealed as top BlackRock beneficiary
ESG operative US Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY) is the top recipient of political campaign contributions paid out by BlackRock, the world’s largest investment firm and ESG investor.
Environmental, social and governance (ESG) is a form of grading companies and countries — and soon people, experts warn — based on how well they conform to utopian ideology on environmental and social issues. For example, the more “environmentally friendly” or “racially inclusive” a company purports to be, the more virtuous it is and thus more worthy of investment. If a company’s ESG score is below certain thresholds, they are not to be invested in at all.
ESG ideology, which has come to mostly refer to environmentalism and “climate change," dictates that a company’s profits must sometimes take a backseat to saving the weather.
Sen. Schumer is one of ESG’s most vocal proponents, insisting the ideology is “common sense” in a Wall Street Journal op-ed last week. Schumer spent the article railing against Republicans who are leading a considerable effort to block a Biden administration rule which allows retirement plan fiduciaries to make investment decisions based on ESG factors.
“ESG opponents are trying to turn it into a dirty acronym, deploying attacks they have long used for elements of a so-called woke agenda,” wrote Schumer. “They call ESG wokeness. They call it a cult. They call it an incursion into free markets. We’ve heard it all before. I say ESG is just common sense.”
Schumer’s position is unsurprising. As pointed out by the American Accountability Foundation, the Senate majority leader’s campaign has received heavy contributions from BlackRock — more than any political candidate or even the Democratic Party.
BlackRock CEO Larry Fink, who leads the world’s largest money management company and oversees $10 trillion in assets, sits on the World Economic Forum’s board of trustees and has been notoriously open about “forcing” businesses to conform to ESG.
“You have to force behaviors, and at BlackRock, we’re forcing behaviors,” Fink said in 2017.
In 2022 BlackRock and individuals related to the firm paid Schumer’s campaign $113,950, with the Democratic National Committee following closely behind at $109,890.
But BlackRock’s donations are eclipsed by Schumer’s other benefactors, who share belief in the radical ESG ideology. Schumer counts among his top five campaign donors a company called NextEra Energy, which is dedicated to the “decarbonization of America” and paid Schumer’s campaign $302,600.
Blackstone Group, another mammoth investment firm heavily dedicated to ESG, paid Schumer $277,000.
Alphabet, Google’s parent company, contributed $185,150 to the senator’s campaign.
