Biden's Progressive Investment Policy Is Overridden By The US Senate

When the US Senate voted Wednesday to remove a Labor Department rule allowing pension funds to take progressive values into account when making investment decisions, Joe Biden is anticipated to issue his first presidential veto.

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Biden's Democrats currently hold the majority in the upper chamber of Congress, but due to three absentees and two dissident Democrats, the Republicans were able to pass the bill by a vote of 50 to 46.

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Biden has threatened to veto the resolution, which would prohibit retirement fund asset managers from taking environmental, social, and governance (ESG) factors into account. The House Republicans' version was approved on Tuesday with the support of one Democrat.

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Republican Senator Bill Cassidy stated that the administration was "prepared to imperil the retirement of 152 million Americans, using their retirement funds to pay a political agenda".

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"Congress' decision today demands the White House keep their hands off of Americans' retirement savings. Asset managers should only be pursuing the best return when investing their clients' retirement resources."

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One of the rebels and Democrat Jon Tester, who is up for reelection in 2024, claimed the rule put retirement savings for families with higher living expenses at risk when lawmakers ought to be making sure they were on the "strongest foundation possible."

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In November, the Labor Department brought back the regulation, rolling back a campaign by the late President Donald Trump to penalize fund managers who take climate change into account when making decisions.

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Democrats emphasized that as long as the investment fund is fulfilling its commitments to its beneficiaries, the policy is impartial about how ESG elements are taken into account.

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The legislation, which the Biden administration pitched as a financial incentive to investors concerned about climate risk, was praised by major investment corporations like BlackRock.

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Although several of the CEOs singled out have refuted the claim, Republican-led states have been pressing businesses for allegedly boycotting oil and gas corporations as part of "responsible" investment strategy.

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Republican presidential candidate Ron DeSantis, the governor of Florida, said last year that basing investments in part on ESG standards was an indication of an unacceptable "ideological agenda." DeSantis is expected to run for president in 2024.

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"This rule isn't about claiming that the left or right view on a certain environmental, social, or governance issue is "correct," "Democratic Senator Patty Murray stated.

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It involves admitting that asset managers have a legitimate basis to take these considerations into account.

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Republican lawmakers, according to Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, have undermined the free market and introduced "hard right ideology into private-sector decision making."

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These are the same predictable, unoriginal, unproductive assaults they use for anything they don't like: "They say this is about wokeness, that this is a cult, that it's some severe intrusion into finance," he said.

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The Sierra Club, an environmental advocacy group, encouraged Biden to follow through on his pledge to veto the "dangerous initiative."

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