The real Chinese spies are attacking America from within

This Commentary was originally published by Fox News.

America under threat from ESG, investment firms aid China’s power push

The Chinese spy balloons are an obvious infiltration into America. Less obvious, but equally perilous, is China’s role in the environmental, social, and governance (ESG) movement. But over the past few weeks, it has become more apparent that the ESG agenda is the China-ESG agenda.

A few weeks ago, I was in Indiana testifying in support of a House bill calling for fiduciary responsibility to take precedence over political ideology in pension fund management. At the hearing, the bankers’ association showed up and touted research done by the Wharton School of Business. The research claimed that costs “could” increase significantly if the bill was passed.

The Houston Chronicle used the same research, claiming that the University of Pennsylvania and the Federal Reserve System say “Texas cities incurred an additional $300 million to $500 million in interest on $31.8 billion in bonds” after Texas passed a law prohibiting the use of ESG in taxpayer-funded investments.

But it wasn’t just the University of Pennsylvania that conducted the study. The claim comes from a “new analysis” that was “conducted by Econsult Solutions on behalf of The Sunrise Project — a nonprofit focused on climate change.” The Sunrise Project’s opening statement on their website gives their allegiance to the “climate crisis” and claims that “an energy revolution is moving the world beyond fossil fuels. How, and how fast that revolution happens will determine the future of humanity.” It’s hardly a politically neutral source.

The Sunrise Project “commissioned” Econsult to “use the econometric analysis of Texas and its findings to provide estimates of the potential financial impacts on taxpayers,” in other words, to rig the results by making a biased corporation create a biased study.

It’s not “analysis.” It’s an outburst by aligned organizations realizing that states that won’t do business with BlackRock, Vanguard, etc. will inhibit their mission to destroy fossil fuels. Doing so, no matter its pace, would also destroy capitalism. It would subject the future of humanity to abject poverty, because affordable and reliable energy is the key to human flourishing.

They know this perfectly well. The Sunrise Project’s consultants gave an editorial comment that the Houston Chronicle buried at the end of the article: “encroachments into the marketplace by political actors…will have adverse effects on long-term public investments, including public program and state pensions.”

But the best interest of American families isn’t the goal of the ESG movement. If you peel back the layers of the onion, it’s clear Wall Street isn’t only pushing the leftist agenda, it’s fighting for China’s agenda. The People’s Republic of China has given about $30 million to the University of Pennsylvania — just a few months before this new study was released by the University’s Wharton School of Business, the same school hosts The ESG Initiative.

BlackRock has shown clear favoritism by giving Chinese companies better ESG scores than American companies, even though American companies are the most environmentally responsible in the world. BlackRock is a part of Climate Action 100+, whose primary investor networks include the Asia Investor Group on Climate Change and includes several Chinese groups, as reported by Heritage Action executive director Jessica Anderson.

And BlackRock owns shares of PetroChina, a fossil fuel-based Chinese company, despite publicly railing against fossil fuels and preaching about the climate “crisis.”

Boycotting financial institutions that place ESG principles on a pedestal over fiduciary duty is the only way to remove political actors from the marketplace. ESG is a political tool to subvert the democratic process and force the political ideology of the globalist elites on the rest of us.

Expensive energy hurts every American, especially the poor and marginalized communities that ESG activists claim to fight for. The results of letting woke companies rule the market would be nothing short of dystopian. And we cannot allow ourselves to think that China is only testing us by hovering spy balloons over our land. China and global elitists are doing even more through Wall Street, and it’s time to stop their ESG agenda.