A New Trump Rule Could Help Big Oil Crush the Climate Movement
By David Sirota, Too Much Information
05 August 20
A rule backed by oil interests tries to keep retirees' savings locked in
climate-threatened assets. Meanwhile, the government says the military must
avoid those kind climate-threatened investments.
If you've ever seen Tom Cruise force Jack Nicholson to admit that he ordered
the code red, then you know that one of the best ways to expose lies and
uncover the truth is to spotlight glaring discrepancies between public
statements.
If you want to know how companies are misleading regulators, look at the
difference between what they tell government officials and what they tell
their own shareholders.
If you want to know how corporations swindle tax collectors, look at the
difference between their boastful earnings statements to shareholders, and
their miserly profit reports to the IRS.
It's the same thing with the climate crisis - if you want to see how the
system of climate denial imperceptibly defrauds the public on a day-to-day
basis, look at the difference between what the federal government is saying
to retirees and workers, and what the same federal government just told the
Pentagon.
Then look at how the bait-and-switch ultimately serves the fossil fuel
industry - which is now asking the government for protection from the
environmental movement that has been successfully pressing pension funds,
endowments, governments and other institutional investors to divest from
fossil fuels.
Labor Department Moves To Ignore Climate Risks
This emblematic two-part story of climate deception starts with a new rule
from Donald Trump's Labor Department. Coming at a moment when fossil fuel
companies and their investors are facing huge losses, the Trump rule aims to
make it more difficult for pension and 401k administrators to shift workers'
savings out of fossil fuel assets and into so-called ESG investments, which
factor in environmental, social and corporate governance considerations.
The proposal is supported by Koch-linked conservative thinktanks; the
Republican-leaning National Association of Manufacturers; a group of
climate-denying GOP lawmakers; and fossil fuel interests such as the North
American Coal Company and the Western Energy Alliance.
The Western Energy Alliance says it "represents over 300 companies engaged
in all aspects of environmentally responsible exploration and production of
oil and natural gas," and its comment letter supporting the rule underscores
the real agenda behind the Labor Department proposal.
"We have observed how ESG advocacy has negatively affected the industry's
access to capital over the last few years, and greatly appreciate that (the
Labor Department) is addressing the larger issue through this rule," the
alliance wrote. "The rule will help ensure that activism regarding pension
plans does not morph into a halt to investment in the sector that provides
nearly 70 percent of American energy."
In other words: Big Oil is effectively arguing that the climate movement's
push to shift investors' money out of fossil fuel assets and into renewables
has been too successful, and so polluters are asking the government to
intervene with a special rule to staunch the bleeding.
Trump officials aren't explicitly admitting that this is their real
motivation. Instead, they purport to be concerned that "a lack of precision
and rigor in the ESG investment marketplace" means "there is no consensus
about what constitutes a genuine ESG investment." And yet, that's a problem
that Trump's government is actively creating: His administration's
Securities and Exchange Commission is refusing to use its power to require
corporations to more thoroughly disclose their exposure to climate risks,
consequently making it harder for financial managers to evaluate
investments' environmental impacts.
Of course, despite that regulatory inaction, there remain easy ways to make
ESG investments, and trillions of dollars have been flowing into those
investments as the public becomes more alarmed by the climate crisis. So
that's where the more radical part of Trump's new ESG rule intervenes -- the
proposal argues that in investing in green companies, pension and 401k
administrators may be making "investment decisions for purposes distinct
from their responsibility to provide benefits to participants and
beneficiaries."
Translated into layman's terms: The Labor Department is claiming to be
worried that retirement systems are inappropriately prioritizing
environmental concerns over generating good investment gains for workers and
retirees.
Indeed, as Trump's Labor Secretary Eugene Scalia argued: "Private
employer-sponsored retirement plans are not vehicles for furthering social
goals or policy objectives that are not in the financial interest of the
plan. Rather, (pension) plans should be managed with unwavering focus on a
single, very important social goal: providing for the retirement security of
American workers."
Government Says Pentagon Must Consider Climate Risks
Undergirding the Labor Department's rule is the insinuation that
environmental considerations are inherently at odds with corporate earnings
and maximizing investors' returns. That presumption is unsupported by
investment data and particularly absurd at a time of oil industry losses. It
is also an insidious form of climate denial, as evidenced by a separate
government study of one of the planet's largest economic players: The United
States Defense Department.
In that recent report, the Government Accountability Office's (GAO)
apolitical auditors note that the Pentagon acknowledges that it "has
identified climate change as a threat to its operations and installations."
Those GAO officials then point out that the military "has not systematically
incorporated consideration of climate change into its acquisition and supply
processes" - a situation which has ended up "limiting the military
departments' ability to best consider the potential effects on their own
operations from climate-related risks faced by their contractors."
The report concludes by recommending that the Pentagon take immediate steps
to factor in climate-related risks when deciding how to successfully invest
in its contractors and supply chain.
"Excluding climate change and extreme weather considerations will limit
DOD's ability to anticipate and manage climate-related risks so as to build
resilience into its processes, and could jeopardize its ability to carry out
its missions," GAO wrote.
A Gift of Climate Denial For the GOP Coalition
So let's review: The Labor Department is trying to help Big Oil prevent
retirees' money from flowing out of the fossil fuel industry and into
investments that factor in climate risks. Trump officials claim (without
proof) that those green investments jeopardize returns and therefore imperil
retirees' economic security.
At the same time, the GAO asserts that the Pentagon should go in the
opposite direction and diligently factor in climate risks in its contracting
decisions, because failing to do so endangers the Defense Department's
supply chain.
Now we see the discrepancy in all its hideous glory - and how it illustrates
the kind of climate denial that continues to course through our political
system.
Clearly, the non-political GAO auditors' are promoting undeniable scientific
facts about the Pentagon's climate-threatened supply-chain investments.
Clearly, Trump appointees' ESG rule is designed to continue subjecting
retirees' savings to the very same climate risks that the GAO says the
Pentagon must avoid.
And clearly, those Trump officials are not motivated by any earnest concern
for workers. They are motivated by an anti-science ideology of climate
denial and corporate fealty that just so happens to serve the interests of
the fossil fuel industry, right-wing think tanks, GOP legislators and the
Republican Party's political coalition.