Harold Hutchison
The Texas Permanent School Fund (PSF) is pulling $8.5 billion from the investment firm BlackRock over its use of environmental, social and governance (ESG) policies.
The board informed the investment firm that it was being terminated as the manager of the Navarro 1 Fund in a Tuesday letter, Consumers’ Research Director Will Hild posted on X. The divestment represents the largest from the private firm, according to Fox Business Network.
“The PSF’s relationship with Blackrock was not in compliance with Texas Government Code Section 809, commonly known as Senate Bill 13, which prohibits state investment in companies like Blackrock that boycott energy companies,” Texas State Board of Education Chairman Aaron Kinsey said in a Tuesday statement.
“BlackRock is helping millions of Texans invest and save for retirement,” a BlackRock spokesperson told the Daily Caller News Foundation. “On behalf of our clients, we’ve invested more than $300 billion in Texas-based companies, infrastructure and municipalities, including $125 billion invested in the energy sector, including $550 million a joint venture with Occidental. We recently hosted an energy summit in Houston designed to explore how to strengthen Texas’ power grid.”
BlackRock has been accused of leveraging its investment in companies to push ESG issues, which push companies to prioritize social and environmental factors into their investment considerations instead of “simply considering the potential profitability,” according to Investopedia.
“Under Larry Fink’s leadership, BlackRock has been misusing client funds to push a political agenda for years. Nowhere was that more egregious than in Texas, where BlackRock was simultaneously trying to destroy the domestic oil and gas industry while managing funds that depended on royalties derived from that very same industry,” Hild commented in a post on X. “A more flagrant violation of fiduciary duty is difficult to imagine.”
“By divesting $8 billion from BlackRock, Chairman Kinsey and the Permant School Fund are not only fulfilling their role as fiduciaries to one of the largest education funds in the country but sending a clear message to Wall Street elites that people can no longer be bullied into complying with ESG’s destructive ideology,” Hild continued. “I look forward to seeing many more states follow suit.”
BlackRock saw almost $4.5 billion pulled from the company over its use of ESG in 2022. Republican Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti of Tennessee sued Blackrock in December, accusing the company of depriving consumers of “the ability to make an informed choice” about the potential impacts using ESG factors for investment.
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