Florida governor Ron DeSantis has signed a bill barring state officials from investing public money to promote environmental, social, and governance goals, and prohibiting ESG bond sales.
The bill is considered as one of the furthest-reaching efforts by U.S. Republicans to date against sustainable investing efforts, with a claim that many executives and investors have lost their focus on returns as they are taking more interest in issues like climate change and board diversity.
“We want them to act as fiduciaries. We do not want them engaged on these ideological joyrides,” said DeSantis before he signed the bill at an online event Tuesday.
The legislation sets out to “protect Floridians from the corporatist environmental, social, and corporate governance (ESG) movement — a worldwide effort to inject woke political ideology across the financial sector.”
“In Florida and across the nation, we’ve heard from law-abiding small business owners and consumers who’ve been denied access to financial services because of where they work or what they believe in,” said Governor Ron DeSantis.
“Companies that engage in ESG hurt their customers and the communities they serve, including Florida’s retirees, by making everything they produce more expensive,” argued House Speaker Paul Renner.
Lawyers and credit analysts told Reuters that the new law could deny municipalities access to large pools of ESG-mandated capital.