Republican Andy Barr, author of the Act Limiting Responsible Investment in Pension Funds in Congress, Washington, DC February 28, 2023. ALEX BRANDON / AP
The US Congress on Wednesday, March 1, passed legislation restricting responsible investment in pension funds, which should prompt President Joe Biden to use his veto power for the first time.
Republicans are opposed to considering environmental, social or governance criteria in financial decisions. They believe this is an ideological stance.
In Congress, they targeted a measure introduced by the Labor Department in January that would facilitate this type of investment in American pension funds.
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Republican Andy Barr, who drafted the law removing the measure, said it “politicizes Americans’ retirement funds and jeopardizes their pensions.”
This law passed in the House of Representatives on Tuesday and passed in the Senate on Wednesday by a vote of 50 to 46. Several Democratic senators voted with the Republicans. Among them is West Virginia mining state Senator Joe Manchin, already known for torpedoing many of Joe Biden’s climate and social ambitions.
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First veto of the Biden presidency
The President of the United States is determined to block an “unacceptable” text, according to his spokeswoman Karine Jean-Pierre. “He will veto this bill when it lands on his desk,” she warned ahead of the Senate vote on Wednesday. This will be the first veto of the Biden presidency.
This text was also widely criticized by environmental organizations. “Preventing people from considering the financial risks associated with climate change, the effects of which they are already feeling, will only serve to damage their savings,” criticized one of them, the Sierra Club, in a statement.
This text is the latest example of highly acrimonious cultural debates dividing the United States on issues of gender, sexual orientation, or climate.
Back in August 2022, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, rising star of the hard right and smasher of “wokism,” ordered the bankers who manage his state’s pension funds to disregard these criteria. He urged people to “priority to residents’ financial security over fanciful notions of a utopian future.”
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