West Virginia State Treasurer Riley Moore announces run for Congress (2022)
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West Virginia State Treasurer Riley Moore (R) announced last week that he is running for Congress in 2024 to represent West Virginia’s Second Congressional District. Moore has been among the leaders in the state-level pushback against ESG investing. He made headlines earlier this year when he told asset management companies that they would no longer be eligible to do business with the state if their investment policies were perceived as harmful to its economy. Moore said he would use his experience as treasurer to craft legislation opposing ESG if he is elected:
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West Virginia Treasurer Riley Moore has made battling ESG a top priority, and he now hopes to bring that fight to the halls of Congress. Moore jumped into the 2024 contest this week, seeking the Republican nomination to represent the state’s 2nd District. Moore grabbed national headlines by using the power of the typically low-profile state treasurer role to work against the environmental, social, and governance push from corporations and financial institutions. Moore told the Washington Examiner during a Tuesday interview that he hopes to continue his anti-ESG crusade at the federal level should he be chosen to serve in Congress. “Look, I’ve been in the trenches on this for two years, and by the time I get there, it will be four years in dealing with it on a day-to-day basis,” Moore said about ESG. “So I’m going to have a wealth of experience coming into Congress, if I’m so lucky to be elected, that can help and inform this ESG scheme that we’re trying to defeat.” While proponents of ESG see it as a way that finance and business can effect social change, such as by mitigating the effects of climate change, Moore and Republicans see the push as an attempt to distort the free market and even the culture of the United States through capital and influence. “Certainly there have been individuals and elected officials on the Hill that have talked about ESG, but I think there is not a total comprehensive understanding of how pervasive this is, how dangerous it is, and steps that need to be taken to kind of fill in some of the cracks here where the states obviously cannot,” he said. Moore has taken several actions against ESG over the past couple of years, with many other GOP state treasurers following suit. “I was the first state treasurer in the country to divest from BlackRock, the first state treasurer in the country to put out a restricted financial institution list,” Moore said. Earlier this year, Moore announced that his state would end the use of a BlackRock investment fund. He said BlackRock has pushed companies to embrace investment strategies that hurt the fossil fuel industry while increasing investment in Chinese companies that go against U.S. interests and damage his state's manufacturing base. Over the summer, his office also declared five financial institutions ineligible for state banking contracts on the grounds that they “boycott” fossil fuel companies. The restricted financial institutions are BlackRock, Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase, Morgan Stanley, and Wells Fargo — many of the biggest financial firms in the world. As the blacklist took effect, all five firms are no longer eligible for state contracts, and any existing contracts were voided. The news meant the firms will lose access to $18 billion in annual inflows and outflows. Moore said the topic of ESG has generated a tremendous amount of attention among constituents in the state…. Moore said if elected to serve in Congress, he wants to look at the rating agencies given that some now have ESG considerations in the bond ratings — something he referred to as “economic extortion.” Additionally, Moore said he hopes to push for aggressive oversight in the ESG realm more generally should be elected to serve the 2nd District.[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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