Leonard Leo, a determine recognized for orchestrating the far-right takeover of the U.S. judiciary, is spearheading a darkish cash community that’s fueling the Home GOP’s assault on environmental, social, and company governance, an investing strategy that ostensibly considers local weather impacts and different societal elements.
With Home Republicans set to carry a listening to Wednesday and consider a slew of payments as a part of their “ESG month,” the watchdog group Accountable.US launched a memo and research spotlighting Leo’s position within the frenzied assault on what’s been dubiously known as “woke capitalism.”
The group notes in its new memo that by the darkish cash group Customers’ Analysis, Leo “has engaged in an aggressive marketing campaign focusing on firms for making climate-friendly investments,” serving to lead the “far-right campaign in opposition to accountable investing.”
Whereas Leo doesn’t have a proper position with Customers’ Analysis, the group’s govt director, Will Hild, lately described Leo as an “adviser to the group.”
Additional, as Accountable.US observes, “Leo’s darkish cash DonorsTrust group has funneled $6 million to Customers’ Analysis, which has, in flip, spent thousands and thousands to publicly disgrace Fortune 500 CEOs and strain corporations in opposition to accountable investing. Leo’s for-profit consulting agency, CRC Advisors, has additionally raked in a whole bunch of 1000’s from Customers’ Analysis.”
Late final 12 months, Customers’ Analysis joined greater than a dozen Republican attorneys normal in demanding a federal investigation into Vanguard, accusing the behemoth asset supervisor of “meddling with [the] power {industry} to attain progressive political targets on the expense of market effectivity,” regardless of the agency’s massive support for fossil fuels.
Simply days later, as The Washington Put up reported, “Vanguard introduced it was quitting a coalition known as the Web Zero Asset Managers Alliance and shelved its personal modest pledges to chop the quantity of greenhouse fuel emissions linked to corporations during which it invests. Leaders of Customers’ Analysis have been shocked — and elated.”
Leo instructed the Put up in an electronic mail earlier this 12 months that “Customers’ Analysis and its chief Will Hild are executing essentially the most impactful pushback I do know in opposition to ESG and different features of woke company tradition.”
“It’s time that companies which might be out of step with the feelings of most People pay a worth for his or her standing up for woke particular curiosity as an alternative of customers,” Leo added, not mentioning that polls have proven a majority of U.S. voters assist permitting asset managers to take local weather under consideration of their funding choices.
Teams managed by Leo, the co-chairman of the right-wing Federalist Society, have additionally bankrolled state-level Republican politicians who’ve launched greater than 160 payments nationwide attacking sustainable investing insurance policies, which companies often don’t adhere to in any case.
Accountable.US factors to a latest report by Pleiades Technique, which highlights “clear connections between anti-ESG laws, the fossil gas {industry}, and right-wing figures.”
“Concerned right-wing activist teams have obtained funding from foundations managed by executives from Koch Industries, which has important fossil gas operations. Many have obtained substantial funding from organizations managed by Leonard Leo, together with the Marble Freedom Belief, the 85 Fund, and the Harmony Fund,” the report reads. “In potential violation of IRS nonprofit legal guidelines, Leo’s for-profit consulting agency, CRC Advisors, is a high contractor for lots of the organizations.”
In its new analysis, Accountable.US notes that “between 2013 and 2019, Customers’ Analysis paid CRC Advisors over $600,000 for public relations work. In 2020, CR paid CRC Advisors practically $113,000, adopted by a whopping practically $625,000 in 2021.”
Accountable.US argues that by stoking political stunts like ESG month, “the Leo-money machine has concocted an ideal distraction from the unpopular, industry-friendly, anti-middle-class insurance policies the Republican Home majority is pursuing, like $1 trillion in new tax breaks for profiteering firms and the billionaires Leonard Leo serves.”
Politico reported Monday that with their upcoming hearings, Republicans on the Home Monetary Providers Committee intend to “goal the method during which advocates strain public corporations to undertake environmental, social, and governance (ESG) targets utilizing the shareholder voting course of.”
Earlier this 12 months, congressional Republicans and two Democratic senators — Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Jon Tester of Montana — joined forces to cross a decision geared toward making it tougher for pension fund managers to take local weather and different issues under consideration when making funding choices.
President Joe Biden vetoed the measure.
“Whereas framed round holding Wall Road to account,” Politico reported, “Monetary Providers Committee Republicans look like choosing spots the place they’ll decrease friction with the {industry}’s greatest gamers.”
That’s hardly shocking provided that Rep. Patrick McHenry (R-N.C.) — the chair of the monetary companies pane — and different Republicans on the committee are major recipients of industry cash.
