CHARLESTON – West Virginia Treasurer Riley Moore is praising the state Legislature’s passage of his proposal to prevent money managers handling state pension funds from advancing their own environmental and social goals ahead of financial returns to the pensioners.
House Bill 2862 would ensure money managers cannot use pension or taxpayer dollars to engage in shareholder voting activism. West Virginia would be the first state to have such protections codified in state law.
The bill requires the state’s investment boards – which manage more than $34 billion in public pension and state investment funds – to cast proxy votes solely based on the financial interests of pensioners and taxpayers, rather than Environmental, Social and Governance factors.
“West Virginia is once again leading the way to protect pensioner and taxpayer dollars from woke Wall Street activists who prioritize their own political and social agendas over the best financial interests of our people,” Moore said. “Each year, public employees in West Virginia retire from their jobs after decades of service to our state and rely on their hard-earned state pensions to support them and their families through retirement.
“If a financial professional cannot commit to casting all shareholder votes in the best financial interests of our pensioners, they simply cannot be entrusted with state pension funds.”
The state Senate passed the bill 30-2 on March 10, sending it to Gov. Jim Justice for approval. Justice has until March 29 to sign or veto the legislation. If he takes no action by then, it automatically becomes law.
Proxy voting allows shareholders to vote on key issues while not personally attending corporations’ annual shareholder meetings. However, in recent years the world’s largest asset managers – including BlackRock, Vanguard and State Street – have leveraged proxy voting authority to further so-called ESG measures that go beyond strictly financial factors, including whether the companies are curtailing business with firms tied to the fossil fuel industry, providing access to abortion care and other social matters under the umbrella of diversity, equity and inclusion.
“Wall Street fund managers and proxy advisory firms have used the façade of ESG to impose woke, leftist policies across the private sector,” Moore said. “Recently, Congress adopted a resolution to roll-back Biden administration rules that allow money managers to consider ESG when voting private retirement shares.
“Now, the states must collectively stand up against ESG proxy voting activism with our public retirement funds.”
Last year, Moore was the first state official to divest funds from BlackRock because of its ESG activism. He also endorsed legislation to create the nation’s first Restricted Financial Institutions List that would keep the state from working with firms engaged in boycotts of the fossil fuel industries.
“West Virginians are sick of out-of-state actors trying to use our own money against us to impose their ideals,” Moore said. “As public officials and lawmakers, we are united in our efforts to stop this undemocratic agenda.”