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State-level ESG legislation may be slowing (2024)
| Environmental, social, and corporate governance |
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| • What is ESG? • Enacted ESG legislation • Arguments for and against ESG • Opposition to ESG • Federal ESG rules • ESG legislation tracker • Economy and Society: Ballotpedia's weekly ESG newsletter |
Reuters reported last week on Ropes and Gray attorney Jonathan Reinstein’s expectations for ESG legislation in 2024, after two relatively busy ESG lawmaking years in 2022 and 2023. Reinstein argued that the present outlook for further state legislative action is complicated and challenging and said he expected activity to slow:
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Looking across the current landscape, there are at least 61 anti-ESG bills that have been identified as either introduced by a state legislature but remain pending in committee or are supposed to carry over from the last legislative session to the 2024 session, according to the firm. The most active states have been Oklahoma with 14 bills, followed by South Carolina (9), Missouri (8), and West Virginia (7). … [T]here are states like Arizona and Wisconsin where political power is divided between the legislature and governor’s office, so the likelihood of one of these polarizing anti-ESG bills getting adopted is also low. However, even in states like New Hampshire, where Republicans control both the governor’s office and state legislature, if a bill goes too far or is too aggressive, that will likely fail as well, said Jonathan Reinstein, an attorney with Ropes and Gray. That situation played out recently with a controversial bill that was introduced last month (House Bill 1267) in the New Hampshire legislature that would make it a felony, punishable by up to 20 years in prison, if a fiduciary, which would include asset managers, invests state or taxpayer funds knowingly in a manner violating fiduciary duties by considering ESG criteria. HB 1267 was unanimously rejected by the House Executive Departments and Administration Committee on Feb. 8. The committee vote came on the heels of a public hearing in which opponents outnumbered supporters 34 to 3.[1] |
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See also
- Environmental, social, and corporate governance (ESG)
- Economy and Society: Ballotpedia's ESG newsletter
External links
Footnotes
- ↑ Note: This text is quoted verbatim from the original source. Any inconsistencies are attributable to the original source.
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