Ron DeSantis rolls out anti-ESG legislative proposals in latest blast against ‘woke elites’
Florida’s governor is speaking out against so-called “wake banking,” with proposed legislation targeting it.
governor Ron DeSantis told an audience in Naples that “environmental social governance,” or “ESG,” imposed by so-called “elites,” “has evolved into a mechanism to infuse political ideology into investment decisions, corporate governance, and really just the everyday economy.”
“It’s ultimately something that’s not going to work well for us here in Florida,” DeSantis claimed. “There is no real fundamental for that from the average citizen.”
following on Ban from last year of ESG investments at the state level, such as pension funds, the governor introduces this year’s improvements.
These include enshrining this ban in law, enacting safeguards against “discrimination based on religious, political and social beliefs,” a ban on the use of “social credit scores,” and a ban on housing deposits in “institutions pursuing this awakened ESG agenda. In addition, the state will keep ESG out of sourcing, contracting and “local and state borrowing.”
DeSantis offered a comprehensive takedown of ESG on Monday.
“We will stand up for the people of Daytona and Destin and not follow the elites in Davos,” DeSantis asserted.
He said the “Davos” crowd is targeting “domestic power generation.” ESG also jeopardizes “national security” by increasing compliance costs, argued DeSantis, and inhibits “supply chain recapture” from China.
Additionally, DeSantis claimed it was violating its fiduciary duty by using “shareholder funds” to “advance a political agenda.”
“Social credit,” DeSantis claimed, is another by-product of “their ideological imperatives.”
“Your targets always seem to be those who are disadvantaged by the jet setters in places like Davos,” DeSantis said. He singled out GEO Group as an example of a company that was “debanked” because “they contracted with the actual federal government to enforce immigration.”
“That uses your economic power to impose a political agenda,” argued DeSantis.
speaker Paul Renner offered support, saying ESG would be “pulled out by the UN and Davos” and vowing Florida would work to “restore America’s energy independence.”
ESG represents a “total hijacking of democracy,” Renner added in a remark condemning the president Joe Biden and California Gov. Gavin Newsom as advocates of this ideological strand.
Senate President Kathleen Passidomoa Naples resident, expressed excitement at this “enormous initiative” between DeSantis and the Speaker of the House.
“The governor is doing things that we all wish we could do,” Passidomo said.
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