WEBVTT - "Woke Capital": A New Front in Climate Obstructionism 0:00:11.039 --> 0:00:14.680 Hello, and welcome back to drillt. We've been on a 0:00:14.680 --> 0:00:17.079 little bit of a break this summer, but we're back 0:00:17.200 --> 0:00:20.120 and we'll be bringing you weekly episodes for the rest 0:00:20.239 --> 0:00:22.800 of the year. Today I have with me Jesse Coleman. 0:00:23.000 --> 0:00:27.479 He's a senior investigator with Documented. They're a watchdog group 0:00:27.560 --> 0:00:31.479 that looks at corporate influence on policy, so, as you 0:00:31.560 --> 0:00:34.640 might imagine, the oil and gas industry shows up on 0:00:34.760 --> 0:00:38.960 their radar quite a bit. This past week, a Documented 0:00:39.000 --> 0:00:45.120 investigation into a totally innocuous sounding group of state treasurers 0:00:45.520 --> 0:00:49.159 turned up a whole lot of information about how Republicans 0:00:49.280 --> 0:00:52.720 and dark money groups are trying to use the power 0:00:52.800 --> 0:00:58.240 of state treasurers to push back against ESG Environmental, Social 0:00:58.480 --> 0:01:02.680 and Governance Guideline. In the finance industry, this is a 0:01:02.720 --> 0:01:06.839 group of policies that govern climate disclosures in the financial 0:01:06.880 --> 0:01:10.160 space and has gone pretty much unchallenged for the past 0:01:10.360 --> 0:01:13.560 decade or so. Banks have been okay with it, Investment 0:01:13.560 --> 0:01:16.520 funds have been okay with it. Oil and gas companies 0:01:16.560 --> 0:01:19.959 have said that they like the idea of climate disclosure. 0:01:20.040 --> 0:01:22.480 But as Jesse found out, all of a sudden a 0:01:22.560 --> 0:01:25.640 year or two ago, that started to shift. There was 0:01:25.680 --> 0:01:29.000 a noticeable shift in tone and a sudden pushback happening. 0:01:29.240 --> 0:01:31.960 The folks that Documented notice this and wanted to look 0:01:32.000 --> 0:01:36.160 into it, and what they found was a really surprising 0:01:36.400 --> 0:01:39.959 strategy that's gone pretty much unnoticed for the past couple 0:01:40.000 --> 0:01:42.880 of years. There was a piece in the New York 0:01:42.880 --> 0:01:46.160 Times about this this past week. Documented has put all 0:01:46.200 --> 0:01:50.320 of the documents related to the investigation on their website, 0:01:50.400 --> 0:01:53.000 and Jesse's here to walk us through all of it. 0:01:53.520 --> 0:02:04.920 That's coming up right after this quick break. Tell me 0:02:04.960 --> 0:02:08.760 a little bit about the backstory of this investigation. What 0:02:08.960 --> 0:02:13.320 made you start looking at state treasurers and this particular 0:02:13.520 --> 0:02:16.200 group that wound up being central to this. 0:02:17.440 --> 0:02:20.040 Yeah. Sure, So you know, we follow the oil and 0:02:20.040 --> 0:02:23.520 gas industry very closely. Documented. You know, our role is 0:02:23.560 --> 0:02:27.560 to kind of unveil corporate power over society and politics, 0:02:27.639 --> 0:02:30.320 and you know, the oil and gas industry is definitely 0:02:30.360 --> 0:02:33.720 a big piece of that, right So, you know, over 0:02:33.720 --> 0:02:36.120 the last couple of years, we had really noticed that 0:02:36.680 --> 0:02:40.239 this kind of catch all term ESG, which stands for environment, 0:02:40.320 --> 0:02:44.280 Social and Governance Reporting, was really becoming a really big 0:02:44.320 --> 0:02:47.400 deal for the oil and gas industry. And what ESG 0:02:47.800 --> 0:02:50.520 is is you know, you like, large corporations have to 0:02:50.560 --> 0:02:53.800 disclose certain things about their impact on the environment and 0:02:53.880 --> 0:02:57.480 society to shareholders, and it was becoming, you know, for 0:02:57.560 --> 0:03:00.720 the oil and gas industry. We were watching it takeover 0:03:01.160 --> 0:03:05.200 agenda of meetings and everybody was talking about it. And 0:03:05.440 --> 0:03:07.200 for most of like the end of twenty twenty and 0:03:07.240 --> 0:03:09.880 early twenty twenty one, we were like, well, this is 0:03:09.919 --> 0:03:12.399 seems like a way for the oil and gas industry 0:03:12.440 --> 0:03:15.639 to access very low cost capital by sort of greenwashing 0:03:15.680 --> 0:03:18.120 themselves and saying that they're you know, good on all 0:03:18.160 --> 0:03:21.079 of these measures and disclosing certain aspects of their business, 0:03:21.160 --> 0:03:24.560 but maybe not changing their business practices very much. Not 0:03:24.639 --> 0:03:26.240 to say that, you know, it was all bad. It's 0:03:26.240 --> 0:03:28.600 great to have more disclosure, and you know, a more 0:03:28.639 --> 0:03:32.919 fulsome sort of disclosure system, which you know is kind 0:03:32.919 --> 0:03:35.520 of in the works right now in certain regulatory agencies, 0:03:35.560 --> 0:03:38.680 would be a good thing. But at the beginning of 0:03:38.760 --> 0:03:42.960 this year we noticed a real shift. Whereas before it 0:03:43.080 --> 0:03:46.840 seemed like these climate disclosures were sort of inevitable. You know, 0:03:46.960 --> 0:03:50.600 the big oil companies like Chevron and Exxon were you know, 0:03:50.720 --> 0:03:53.800 saying we're on board for this. You know, everybody everybody 0:03:53.840 --> 0:03:56.360 was saying, you know, we're going to do these climate disclosures, 0:03:56.360 --> 0:03:58.960 it's going to happen. Previously at the at the at 0:03:59.000 --> 0:04:01.480 the beginning of this year, started to see like a 0:04:01.560 --> 0:04:05.640 lot of pushback. We started to see direct sort of 0:04:05.640 --> 0:04:08.960 attacks on this idea of climate disclosure, and we started 0:04:08.960 --> 0:04:12.200 to see sort of little brush fires pop up in 0:04:12.200 --> 0:04:16.080 different states, you know, attacking the idea of disclosing climate 0:04:16.120 --> 0:04:18.800 information like this, and we thought, well, you know that's 0:04:18.839 --> 0:04:23.480 pretty interesting, that's really interesting. Yeah right, yeah, yeah, So, 0:04:23.720 --> 0:04:25.640 you know, it all kind of kicked off, especially with 0:04:25.680 --> 0:04:28.159 a bill that became law in Texas, which you know, 0:04:28.200 --> 0:04:31.880 it was called kind of colloquially the Fossil Boycott Rule, 0:04:31.960 --> 0:04:34.039 which said that you know, the state of Texas will 0:04:34.040 --> 0:04:37.640 no longer do business with any company that quote unquote 0:04:37.640 --> 0:04:40.479 Boycott's fossil fuels, and that became a law in the state, 0:04:41.040 --> 0:04:43.960 and you know, we said, well, that's that's interesting. This 0:04:44.040 --> 0:04:47.800 isn't coming from nowhere, you know, So we started kind 0:04:47.839 --> 0:04:52.279 of filing records requests around around the states, looking for 0:04:52.520 --> 0:04:56.840 initially just communications between you know, the Texas Comptroller, which 0:04:56.880 --> 0:04:59.960 is what they call their treasure and other sort of 0:05:00.120 --> 0:05:04.280 of state officials that would be potentially pushing these boycott 0:05:04.320 --> 0:05:07.279 bills in different states. And as we got started to 0:05:07.279 --> 0:05:09.080 get some of these records back, you know, it wasn't 0:05:09.120 --> 0:05:12.880 exactly what we anticipated. We kind of anticipated this group, 0:05:12.960 --> 0:05:16.480 the Texas Public Policy Foundation was maybe you know, driving 0:05:16.520 --> 0:05:19.160 this in the back seat to a large degree, and 0:05:19.320 --> 0:05:22.360 you know, it actually turns out they are really involved. 0:05:22.720 --> 0:05:25.719 But there's this other group called the State Financial Officers 0:05:25.800 --> 0:05:30.440 Foundation that was acting as this really important central node 0:05:30.600 --> 0:05:34.080 of a much wider campaign to fight climate policy in 0:05:34.200 --> 0:05:37.080 general that you know, included this web of dark money 0:05:37.080 --> 0:05:39.240 groups that did include, like I said, the Texas Public 0:05:39.279 --> 0:05:43.760 Policy Foundation, but other major national political players like Heritage, 0:05:44.080 --> 0:05:47.599 the American Legislative Exchange Council ALEC, and some of the 0:05:47.680 --> 0:05:49.719 you know, kind of the most powerful dark money groups 0:05:49.720 --> 0:05:50.480 in the United States. 0:05:50.960 --> 0:05:55.240 Wow, that is so interesting, so so interesting. Okay, So 0:05:55.360 --> 0:05:57.320 that tipped you off like that, This random I mean, 0:05:57.400 --> 0:06:02.000 it's such a perfect, like innocuous sounding group, right. 0:06:02.920 --> 0:06:06.240 Yeah, exactly, Yeah, hiding behind their very boring name. 0:06:08.120 --> 0:06:10.839 Yeah, So what are they and what were they getting 0:06:10.920 --> 0:06:11.120 up to? 0:06:12.000 --> 0:06:15.599 So the State Financial Officers Foundation is a nonprofit group. 0:06:15.800 --> 0:06:19.039 They kind of build themselves as a group of state 0:06:19.080 --> 0:06:21.839 treasurers that are interested in the quote unquote free market, 0:06:21.839 --> 0:06:24.839 which is really interesting. That's usually sort of code word 0:06:24.880 --> 0:06:27.080 as I'm sure you and many other people know for 0:06:27.560 --> 0:06:31.599 you know, Republican like righting politics, and that's kind of 0:06:31.600 --> 0:06:34.120 what they had been since they're founding about ten years ago. 0:06:34.560 --> 0:06:36.960 But they didn't, you know, they weren't really weighing into 0:06:37.279 --> 0:06:40.039 major national issues. Like the things that they were focused 0:06:40.080 --> 0:06:44.040 on were really within the realm of financial officers of states, 0:06:44.120 --> 0:06:48.920 you know, pension you know, like retirement plans, college savings plans, 0:06:49.440 --> 0:06:52.840 that kind of thing. But we see about a year 0:06:52.880 --> 0:06:56.240 ago this group of state financial officers foundation, they really 0:06:56.279 --> 0:07:01.359 shift their focus and become completely obsessed with climate measures 0:07:01.400 --> 0:07:04.520 and talking about climate change and repeating you know these 0:07:04.600 --> 0:07:08.479 like really old lines on climate denial. You know, CO 0:07:08.680 --> 0:07:10.800 two isn't bad for you, it's causing a great greeting 0:07:10.880 --> 0:07:14.080 of the earth, and all of these efforts to. 0:07:14.600 --> 0:07:16.080 Hit in the wayback machine. 0:07:16.560 --> 0:07:19.440 Yes exactly. Yeah, we've heard all this before and kind 0:07:19.480 --> 0:07:21.640 of thought some of it had you know, kind of 0:07:21.760 --> 0:07:25.680 passed into into messaging that doesn't work anymore. But sure enough, 0:07:25.720 --> 0:07:27.320 you know, here it is again at the state level. 0:07:27.840 --> 0:07:31.600 Wow, Wow. So okay, so they had this big shift 0:07:32.640 --> 0:07:36.600 last year starting to talk about climate and ESG all 0:07:36.600 --> 0:07:39.400 the time and whatnot. What did you find about what 0:07:39.560 --> 0:07:40.800 kind of drove that shift? 0:07:42.360 --> 0:07:45.000 Well, So, I mean, just just to like one more 0:07:45.040 --> 0:07:48.000 thing kind of how they operate. They're really closely tied, 0:07:48.040 --> 0:07:50.440 like I said, to the American Legislative Exchange Council, and 0:07:50.480 --> 0:07:53.360 they have a lot of similar attributes. One of those 0:07:53.440 --> 0:07:56.920 is that they have you know, two or more yearly 0:07:57.040 --> 0:08:00.200 meetings where they get together all their Republican treasure and 0:08:00.240 --> 0:08:03.040 all of their corporate sponsors and they go to fancy 0:08:03.080 --> 0:08:05.760 dinners and they kind of talk about, you know, how 0:08:05.800 --> 0:08:10.600 they're going to you know, strategize on whatever the issue 0:08:10.680 --> 0:08:13.240 of the day is. Well that you know, about a 0:08:13.280 --> 0:08:15.280 year ago, that issue of the day, like I said, 0:08:15.320 --> 0:08:20.240 became opposing climate finance policy kind of in many different ways, 0:08:20.480 --> 0:08:26.520 but it really coalesced around attacking policies by large financial 0:08:26.560 --> 0:08:30.480 institutions like Black Rock, and moves in the financial sphere 0:08:30.640 --> 0:08:33.240 of you know, by like the Securities and Exchange Commission 0:08:33.720 --> 0:08:36.760 or the Department of Labor where these agencies are saying 0:08:37.080 --> 0:08:40.040 you should disclose climate risks and that and that sort 0:08:40.080 --> 0:08:43.199 of thing. So yeah, so they they kind of shifted 0:08:43.240 --> 0:08:47.400 from talking about more financial stuff to these really kind 0:08:47.440 --> 0:08:50.000 of hard line climate issues, and they invited in like 0:08:50.080 --> 0:08:52.240 a key turning point here is when they was when 0:08:52.679 --> 0:08:56.360 this other dark money group called Consumers Research became a 0:08:56.880 --> 0:09:01.439 top fiscal sponsor of the State Finance Officers Foundation. And 0:09:01.480 --> 0:09:04.680 then you see the agenda of these, you know, yearly gatherings. 0:09:04.720 --> 0:09:08.520 These meetings shift like almost completely over to how do 0:09:08.559 --> 0:09:11.320 we attack black Rock, how do we stop climate finance 0:09:11.400 --> 0:09:14.719 disclosure rules, how do we take on quote unquote wote capitalism. 0:09:14.800 --> 0:09:17.120 It's so funny because I was reading through your through 0:09:17.160 --> 0:09:19.720 the description on the documented website, and as soon as 0:09:19.760 --> 0:09:23.160 I as I saw woke capitalism, I was like, oh god, 0:09:24.160 --> 0:09:28.559 I'm sure there's like a Peter Teal strive capital uh 0:09:29.160 --> 0:09:31.319 say here. Sure enough. It was like two paragraphs later, 0:09:31.440 --> 0:09:33.760 I was like, there it is, so yeah, tell me 0:09:33.840 --> 0:09:35.960 about this is this is like a thing right in 0:09:35.960 --> 0:09:40.040 the last year or two of these kind of libertarian 0:09:40.360 --> 0:09:44.160 folks being all up in arms about ESG and quote 0:09:44.240 --> 0:09:47.680 unquote woke capitalism. What what's that about? 0:09:49.040 --> 0:09:52.439 Well it's a great example of how uh, you know, 0:09:52.800 --> 0:09:55.760 these sort of republican dark money groups are really good 0:09:55.920 --> 0:10:02.000 at creating a like a fake thing to attack and 0:10:02.160 --> 0:10:04.959 really kind of driving it into reality, you know, from 0:10:05.200 --> 0:10:08.400 a very niche, very like sort of off the wall 0:10:08.440 --> 0:10:11.520 issue that nobody is talking about to now. You know, 0:10:11.640 --> 0:10:13.640 you hear Mike Pence talk about it, You hear it's 0:10:13.679 --> 0:10:16.360 on Fox News every day like to you know, now 0:10:16.360 --> 0:10:19.120 it's really kind of taken taken been taken up by 0:10:19.120 --> 0:10:21.400 the zeitgeist. And like I said, really I think you 0:10:21.400 --> 0:10:23.760 can trace that back to a large degree to groups 0:10:23.800 --> 0:10:27.080 like consumers Research, who you know, they kind of saw 0:10:27.200 --> 0:10:29.880 the writing on the wall. They saw that, you know, 0:10:30.160 --> 0:10:33.640 climate policy was really stalling in most places, but one 0:10:33.679 --> 0:10:36.240 place that it wasn't really stalling and was continuing to 0:10:36.320 --> 0:10:39.960 move was in this financial world. And like I said, 0:10:40.080 --> 0:10:43.319 you know, the SEC was taking up rules and these 0:10:43.400 --> 0:10:45.880 large financial asset managers were saying, we have to take 0:10:45.880 --> 0:10:49.439 climate change into account, you know, in our investments. And 0:10:49.640 --> 0:10:52.320 so they kind of said this is quote unquote wote 0:10:52.320 --> 0:10:54.840 capitalism and black Rock is a vulte capitalist, which is 0:10:55.320 --> 0:10:59.679 kind of ridiculous if you know anything about Blackrock right there, 0:11:00.559 --> 0:11:03.040 you know, I mean, WOK doesn't really have a meaning necessarily, 0:11:03.080 --> 0:11:03.679 but they're. 0:11:03.640 --> 0:11:08.280 Just capitalism is an oxymoron. That's it's just yeah, it 0:11:08.480 --> 0:11:08.800 just is. 0:11:11.280 --> 0:11:13.720 But it allowed them to sort of, in this really 0:11:13.800 --> 0:11:18.400 new and interesting way, meld defense of the fossil fuel 0:11:18.400 --> 0:11:21.679 industry with the culture war, and it was way more 0:11:21.679 --> 0:11:25.240 successful than other attempts like this. And you know, this 0:11:25.280 --> 0:11:28.319 group of State Financial Officers Foundation, because they were made 0:11:28.400 --> 0:11:31.720 up of treasures, state treasurers who actually have a lot 0:11:31.760 --> 0:11:35.560 of power over financial decisions in their states. You know, 0:11:35.800 --> 0:11:39.160 they elevated this group, the State Financial Officers Foundation, into 0:11:39.200 --> 0:11:42.800 this really key weapon against climate policy. 0:11:43.280 --> 0:11:46.760 That's so interesting because I feel like it kind of 0:11:46.800 --> 0:11:49.319 coincides with with a lot of folks in the climate 0:11:49.360 --> 0:11:52.680 movement kind of. I mean, a lot of people have 0:11:52.720 --> 0:11:55.280 been very focused on the financial sector for a long time, 0:11:55.800 --> 0:11:58.200 the divestment movement and all of that, right, But I 0:11:58.240 --> 0:12:01.600 feel like there's just in the last year to people 0:12:01.640 --> 0:12:05.640 who had traditionally kind of been like finance and you know, 0:12:06.080 --> 0:12:08.560 it scares me. I have been, you know, have been 0:12:08.640 --> 0:12:11.480 kind of turning towards it too. So it's interesting that 0:12:12.640 --> 0:12:17.360 these guys sort of anticipated more attention in that realm. 0:12:17.559 --> 0:12:19.360 So what are some of the things that they've been 0:12:19.360 --> 0:12:22.559 able to accomplish well. 0:12:22.679 --> 0:12:26.480 So they've passed laws in five states and are aimed 0:12:26.480 --> 0:12:29.400 at passing laws in twenty more states that are based 0:12:29.440 --> 0:12:32.480 off of this sort of fossil fuel boycott rule, which 0:12:32.800 --> 0:12:35.920 there's different sort of model policies that they're passing around. 0:12:36.040 --> 0:12:39.440 The end result is kind of all the same, which 0:12:39.480 --> 0:12:43.600 is to either scare asset managers into backing away from 0:12:43.600 --> 0:12:46.440 their climate promises or to get rid of the asset 0:12:46.480 --> 0:12:50.080 managers that have climate promises. And that's you know, that's 0:12:50.160 --> 0:12:53.280 that's been a really sort of big and interesting piece 0:12:53.320 --> 0:12:56.040 of this like sort of wide ranging campaign. But they're 0:12:56.040 --> 0:12:58.679 also doing, you know a lot of other things. They're 0:12:59.080 --> 0:13:03.520 opposing federal nominees to you know, like key positions in 0:13:03.880 --> 0:13:08.400 federal government that oversee you know, financial measures. They're sending 0:13:08.440 --> 0:13:11.640 comments to rules that are signed by the Treasures. So 0:13:11.679 --> 0:13:15.080 they look you know like very legitimate and look very serious, 0:13:15.120 --> 0:13:17.320 but yet they're all kind of coordinated behind the scenes 0:13:17.360 --> 0:13:22.600 by this other national group, and they're they're also just 0:13:22.800 --> 0:13:26.200 kind of, like I said, just figuring out how to 0:13:26.840 --> 0:13:32.280 kind of scare the financial industry away from over talk 0:13:32.360 --> 0:13:33.319 about climate change. 0:13:33.400 --> 0:13:34.920 That is a big deal because I feel like it's 0:13:35.000 --> 0:13:38.880 just been kind of this innocuous thing in the background 0:13:38.920 --> 0:13:41.760 for like twenty years, you know, and yeah, you're right, 0:13:41.840 --> 0:13:45.080 like for a long long time the oil companies, it 0:13:45.160 --> 0:13:47.520 was more like something that they seem to see as 0:13:47.559 --> 0:13:49.800 a helpful tool for them to relaunch. 0:13:50.040 --> 0:13:56.920 Honestly, totally. Yeah. I mean we've heard the oil industry say, 0:13:57.000 --> 0:13:59.280 you know, this is a great way to access low 0:13:59.320 --> 0:14:01.680 cost capital because all we have to do is disclose 0:14:01.840 --> 0:14:04.120 X and Y, and then suddenly, you know, we get 0:14:04.200 --> 0:14:06.640 cheaper money from it. So you know, it's not and 0:14:06.960 --> 0:14:09.320 I think this is another really interesting thing about this, 0:14:09.440 --> 0:14:13.760 and you know, you kind of hear ALEX leader Lisa 0:14:13.800 --> 0:14:16.600 Nelson talk about this recently. She talked about this recently. 0:14:16.679 --> 0:14:20.760 But you know, they did polling on Blackrock and what 0:14:20.840 --> 0:14:25.040 they found was that Democrats don't like Blackrock. It's nobody 0:14:25.600 --> 0:14:29.280 large corporation in the wall. Yeah, and now Republicans don't 0:14:29.320 --> 0:14:32.040 like Blackrock. So they were able to kind of do 0:14:32.200 --> 0:14:35.520 this great, uh, you know, sort of pivot to where 0:14:35.680 --> 0:14:38.840 they're the you know, they're the people that are opposing 0:14:39.280 --> 0:14:41.320 you know, corporate power, and they're the ones that are 0:14:41.360 --> 0:14:44.600 doing corporate accountability, which you know, and it isn't really true, 0:14:45.040 --> 0:14:48.800 but it does it does kind of scramble their opposition 0:14:48.920 --> 0:14:51.840 in a way. Who's who's used to being the people 0:14:51.880 --> 0:14:56.120 that stand up for the people against against large corporations, 0:14:56.120 --> 0:14:58.040 and now it kind of looks like they are, you know. 0:14:58.400 --> 0:15:01.560 So interesting. Did you do get any sense of like 0:15:01.680 --> 0:15:05.600 what happened that made them go from thinking this is 0:15:05.640 --> 0:15:08.600 a handy tool too, this is a threat. Did you 0:15:08.600 --> 0:15:11.200 get any sense of that from any of these documents 0:15:11.560 --> 0:15:15.200 or just from you know, being immersed in it in general? Yeah? 0:15:15.240 --> 0:15:17.160 Sure, I mean you have to look at who's behind 0:15:17.200 --> 0:15:22.720 the State Financial Officers Foundation, you know, I mentioned ALEC Heritage. Yeah, 0:15:22.800 --> 0:15:25.360 so they've played really key roles in all of this, 0:15:25.680 --> 0:15:28.240 and you know, they're dark money groups, so we don't 0:15:28.240 --> 0:15:31.760 actually know who's funding them behind the scenes, but we 0:15:31.840 --> 0:15:34.080 do know that, you know, these are the places that 0:15:34.200 --> 0:15:37.120 a lot of these larger quote unquote culture war messaging 0:15:37.600 --> 0:15:41.640 sort of campaigns come from. You know, so I think 0:15:42.120 --> 0:15:48.360 large national groups basically saw a political advantage to going 0:15:48.400 --> 0:15:50.600 after this, and as they did their thing, as they 0:15:50.640 --> 0:15:52.840 did polling, as they did you know, as they did 0:15:52.840 --> 0:15:55.320 the various measurements that they do, they kind of saw 0:15:55.360 --> 0:15:58.560 that it was it was being rather successful. So I 0:15:58.560 --> 0:16:00.680 think that it was really you know, like I said, 0:16:00.720 --> 0:16:03.960 these large national dark money political groups that saw this 0:16:04.080 --> 0:16:07.480 as a as a as a powerful tool, and it 0:16:07.560 --> 0:16:09.920 kind of filtered down into the state level because of that, 0:16:09.960 --> 0:16:11.440 because you know, you have to look at this sort 0:16:11.440 --> 0:16:15.000 of incentive structure that these state treasurers have. If they 0:16:15.040 --> 0:16:20.040 talk about wote capitalism, suddenly they're going to the big 0:16:20.200 --> 0:16:22.640 Heritage Foundation meeting with all of the biggest funders in 0:16:22.680 --> 0:16:26.240 the Republican Party in d C. You know, sfof got 0:16:26.280 --> 0:16:28.920 a huge award from Heritage Foundation this last year, and 0:16:28.960 --> 0:16:31.560 they took a lot of key treasures with them, you know, 0:16:31.640 --> 0:16:34.440 to this big meeting where they you know, were feeded 0:16:34.480 --> 0:16:37.360 by you know, some of the biggest you know funders around. 0:16:37.440 --> 0:16:41.280 So politically, for these state treasurers, it's a great deal 0:16:41.400 --> 0:16:43.440 to get attention for doing something like this. They get 0:16:43.480 --> 0:16:46.320 to go on Tucker Carlson, you know, so you know, 0:16:46.360 --> 0:16:49.280 they have an incentive to do this since it's being 0:16:49.320 --> 0:16:52.040 supported by Heritage and now like and others. 0:16:52.560 --> 0:16:55.320 It makes me wonder too if maybe they sort of 0:16:56.160 --> 0:16:59.920 realized or noticed that this was an area that would 0:17:00.240 --> 0:17:03.560 be less I don't know, like less touched by the 0:17:03.600 --> 0:17:07.440 whole litigation strategy. You know, Like I know, I've heard 0:17:07.520 --> 0:17:13.000 people talk about, well, if policy fails and litigation is 0:17:13.000 --> 0:17:15.960 getting you know, ultimately gummed up at the Supreme Court, 0:17:16.040 --> 0:17:19.119 we should be leaning on the fed right to like 0:17:19.640 --> 0:17:22.280 embrace certain financial policies. And it makes me wonder if 0:17:22.280 --> 0:17:24.640 these groups start like we're like, Okay, what's the one 0:17:24.680 --> 0:17:27.840 place that's not really touched by by our court strategy, 0:17:28.560 --> 0:17:31.320 and it's it's finance and insurance. I wonder if they're 0:17:31.359 --> 0:17:34.199 if they're looking at the insurance industry as part of 0:17:34.200 --> 0:17:37.280 this too. When I say they, I mean like Heritage 0:17:37.359 --> 0:17:40.600 and ALEC and all of those groups. 0:17:42.000 --> 0:17:44.879 Yeah, that's a great question. I would say. You know, 0:17:44.920 --> 0:17:48.960 they kind of are very upfront about why the treasures, 0:17:49.080 --> 0:17:52.359 why finance? And you know Riley Moore, the treasure of 0:17:52.359 --> 0:17:54.199 West Virginia, who's a real leader of all of this, 0:17:54.359 --> 0:17:58.600 was actually on a podcast with the with SFOF, the 0:17:58.600 --> 0:18:02.240 head of SFOF, and he was talking about why the 0:18:02.240 --> 0:18:06.040 state treasures are so perfect as a weapon against climate policy, 0:18:06.080 --> 0:18:08.560 and he said, you know, the attorney's generals, they have 0:18:08.600 --> 0:18:11.960 to work through the courts. I speak with the taxpayers 0:18:12.040 --> 0:18:14.840 money with the stroke of my pen I can change 0:18:14.880 --> 0:18:17.159 things and it doesn't have to go through the court system. 0:18:17.600 --> 0:18:20.800 And you know, sure enough, the law that Riley Moore 0:18:21.119 --> 0:18:23.480 got passed in West and West Virginia this last year, 0:18:23.880 --> 0:18:26.520 it gave him the power, even more power than the 0:18:26.520 --> 0:18:29.639 treasurer already had to decide who the state's going to 0:18:29.720 --> 0:18:32.119 invest with. And you know, then you saw, you know, 0:18:32.200 --> 0:18:35.119 just in the last month, Riley Moore kicked you know, 0:18:35.240 --> 0:18:37.919 five large asset managers out of the state, you know, 0:18:37.960 --> 0:18:41.760 with that newfound power. So they see the treasurers as 0:18:41.800 --> 0:18:46.159 this you know, sort of extra judicial you know, power 0:18:46.480 --> 0:18:49.359 center that they can exploit a little bit. And you know, 0:18:49.400 --> 0:18:52.600 it obviously fits into a larger you know, right wing 0:18:52.640 --> 0:18:58.040 strategy of sort of mobilizing down ballot elected officials. So 0:18:58.160 --> 0:19:00.080 you know, it fits into this larger trend. But I 0:19:00.080 --> 0:19:02.240 think the treasures they're in a particularly good place to 0:19:02.359 --> 0:19:03.360 kind of cause havoc here. 0:19:03.560 --> 0:19:07.399 Yeah, yeah, So what impact is having on the financial sector? 0:19:07.520 --> 0:19:09.679 Are they do you have any sense of like, you know, 0:19:10.080 --> 0:19:12.800 is JP Morgan like, oh no, maybe we should rethink 0:19:12.840 --> 0:19:15.480 this strategy because we're getting kicked out of West Virginia 0:19:15.720 --> 0:19:18.040 or are they like whatever, this is not a big 0:19:18.040 --> 0:19:18.760 deal to us. 0:19:19.840 --> 0:19:23.040 It seems like they don't know how to handle the pressure. 0:19:23.520 --> 0:19:26.680 You know. I mean, these giant asset managers, they're so big, 0:19:26.720 --> 0:19:29.040 they're so used to being the giant, you know, the 0:19:29.080 --> 0:19:30.920 biggest fish in the in the pond. 0:19:31.000 --> 0:19:35.439 Yeah, like calling the shots, right, Like I mean, usually 0:19:35.480 --> 0:19:39.320 it's like everyone competing for their business, not them having 0:19:39.359 --> 0:19:42.640 to worry about who wants to do business with them. 0:19:42.800 --> 0:19:45.439 So yeah, that's interesting. So yeah, sorry I interrupted you, 0:19:45.480 --> 0:19:47.760 but you were saying they're not sure how to handle it. 0:19:47.840 --> 0:19:51.479 No, yeah, no, that's exactly right. Yeah, So I mean 0:19:51.520 --> 0:19:53.600 we get I get the feeling that, you know, Blackrock, 0:19:53.680 --> 0:19:55.040 they just don't they don't know what to do with 0:19:55.080 --> 0:19:58.359 this criticism. You saw them after the Texas law was passed. 0:19:58.359 --> 0:20:01.040 You saw them hire lobbyists for the time in Texas. 0:20:01.119 --> 0:20:03.560 Who did they hire. They hired oil and gas industry lobbyist. 0:20:03.680 --> 0:20:05.960 What did they do. They went around to you know, 0:20:06.080 --> 0:20:10.000 key Texas officials and said, you know, we love oil 0:20:10.040 --> 0:20:12.200 and gas. Here's all of our oil and gas investments. 0:20:12.240 --> 0:20:14.440 We're always going to continue to invest in oil and gas. 0:20:15.040 --> 0:20:16.879 You know, you saw them do that in other states 0:20:16.880 --> 0:20:20.399 as well, so you know, you do see remarkable change 0:20:20.400 --> 0:20:23.880 in tone. I'd also say, you know, in West Virginia, 0:20:24.000 --> 0:20:26.480 you know, we just I just mentioned that Riley Moore 0:20:26.640 --> 0:20:29.160 kicked out five or said that, you know, these five 0:20:29.240 --> 0:20:32.199 large asset management companies can no longer do business with 0:20:32.240 --> 0:20:35.919 the state. Well, there were six asset management companies that 0:20:35.960 --> 0:20:40.800 were under review, right but one one company, US Bank 0:20:40.800 --> 0:20:45.600 Court apparently walked back their climate stances enough to continue 0:20:45.600 --> 0:20:47.960 to be able to do business with the state, you know, 0:20:48.080 --> 0:20:50.520 and and Riley Moore and others, you know, considered this 0:20:50.600 --> 0:20:53.880 a huge win obviously because they've forced you know, US 0:20:53.960 --> 0:20:56.239 Bank Corp. To you know, change in some way. And 0:20:56.440 --> 0:20:58.119 we don't have all the details on that yet, but 0:20:58.600 --> 0:21:00.680 you know, US Bank Corp. Was not put on the 0:21:00.800 --> 0:21:03.520 boycott list. So yeah, I mean, I think that there 0:21:03.520 --> 0:21:07.000 are definitely changes happening as a response to this campaign, 0:21:07.359 --> 0:21:09.720 and I think that's why we'll see this kind of 0:21:09.800 --> 0:21:13.359 campaign continue. You know, I don't think that this is 0:21:13.640 --> 0:21:15.119 by any means. 0:21:15.119 --> 0:21:17.560 Over And I mean, what kind of impact can this 0:21:17.640 --> 0:21:22.000 have on taxpayers in the state if you know, large 0:21:22.040 --> 0:21:25.680 pots of capital are suddenly like not not at play 0:21:25.880 --> 0:21:26.639 in their state. 0:21:28.320 --> 0:21:31.640 Yeah, well that's kind of you know, this is where 0:21:31.680 --> 0:21:36.000 we get to like how this is also bizarre because 0:21:36.480 --> 0:21:38.040 you know, there was a big study that just came 0:21:38.040 --> 0:21:40.080 out that was looking at the Texas law and looking 0:21:40.119 --> 0:21:43.159 at the changes that Texas is making in response to 0:21:43.200 --> 0:21:47.440 that law and in response to state investments, and pensioners 0:21:47.560 --> 0:21:52.320 in Texas are set to lose like hundreds of millions 0:21:52.320 --> 0:21:57.280 of dollars because of this. So it is actually really hurting, 0:21:57.800 --> 0:22:00.800 you know, the people that are trusting these publican states 0:22:00.880 --> 0:22:03.080 with their pensions and with their investments. 0:22:03.200 --> 0:22:05.679 Can they be sued then for that under the like 0:22:06.560 --> 0:22:10.320 what is it ezvere laws where like the people in 0:22:10.440 --> 0:22:13.200 charge of pensions have to be acting, you know, in 0:22:13.280 --> 0:22:16.480 the best interests of returns for the people enrolled in 0:22:16.480 --> 0:22:17.160