Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome back to drillt. We've been on a
Speaker 1: little bit of a break this summer, but we're back
Speaker 1: and we'll be bringing you weekly episodes for the rest
Speaker 1: of the year. Today I have with me Jesse Coleman.
Speaker 1: He's a senior investigator with Documented. They're a watchdog group
Speaker 1: that looks at corporate influence on policy, so, as you
Speaker 1: might imagine, the oil and gas industry shows up on
Speaker 1: their radar quite a bit. This past week, a Documented
Speaker 1: investigation into a totally innocuous sounding group of state treasurers
Speaker 1: turned up a whole lot of information about how Republicans
Speaker 1: and dark money groups are trying to use the power
Speaker 1: of state treasurers to push back against ESG Environmental, Social
Speaker 1: and Governance Guideline. In the finance industry, this is a
Speaker 1: group of policies that govern climate disclosures in the financial
Speaker 1: space and has gone pretty much unchallenged for the past
Speaker 1: decade or so. Banks have been okay with it, Investment
Speaker 1: funds have been okay with it. Oil and gas companies
Speaker 1: have said that they like the idea of climate disclosure.
Speaker 1: But as Jesse found out, all of a sudden a
Speaker 1: year or two ago, that started to shift. There was
Speaker 1: a noticeable shift in tone and a sudden pushback happening.
Speaker 1: The folks that Documented notice this and wanted to look
Speaker 1: into it, and what they found was a really surprising
Speaker 1: strategy that's gone pretty much unnoticed for the past couple
Speaker 1: of years. There was a piece in the New York
Speaker 1: Times about this this past week. Documented has put all
Speaker 1: of the documents related to the investigation on their website,
Speaker 1: and Jesse's here to walk us through all of it.
Speaker 1: That's coming up right after this quick break. Tell me
Speaker 1: a little bit about the backstory of this investigation. What
Speaker 1: made you start looking at state treasurers and this particular
Speaker 1: group that wound up being central to this.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Sure, So you know, we follow the oil and
Speaker 2: gas industry very closely. Documented. You know, our role is
Speaker 2: to kind of unveil corporate power over society and politics,
Speaker 2: and you know, the oil and gas industry is definitely
Speaker 2: a big piece of that, right So, you know, over
Speaker 2: the last couple of years, we had really noticed that
Speaker 2: this kind of catch all term ESG, which stands for environment,
Speaker 2: Social and Governance Reporting, was really becoming a really big
Speaker 2: deal for the oil and gas industry. And what ESG
Speaker 2: is is you know, you like, large corporations have to
Speaker 2: disclose certain things about their impact on the environment and
Speaker 2: society to shareholders, and it was becoming, you know, for
Speaker 2: the oil and gas industry. We were watching it takeover
Speaker 2: agenda of meetings and everybody was talking about it. And
Speaker 2: for most of like the end of twenty twenty and
Speaker 2: early twenty twenty one, we were like, well, this is
Speaker 2: seems like a way for the oil and gas industry
Speaker 2: to access very low cost capital by sort of greenwashing
Speaker 2: themselves and saying that they're you know, good on all
Speaker 2: of these measures and disclosing certain aspects of their business,
Speaker 2: but maybe not changing their business practices very much. Not
Speaker 2: to say that, you know, it was all bad. It's
Speaker 2: great to have more disclosure, and you know, a more
Speaker 2: fulsome sort of disclosure system, which you know is kind
Speaker 2: of in the works right now in certain regulatory agencies,
Speaker 2: would be a good thing. But at the beginning of
Speaker 2: this year we noticed a real shift. Whereas before it
Speaker 2: seemed like these climate disclosures were sort of inevitable. You know,
Speaker 2: the big oil companies like Chevron and Exxon were you know,
Speaker 2: saying we're on board for this. You know, everybody everybody
Speaker 2: was saying, you know, we're going to do these climate disclosures,
Speaker 2: it's going to happen. Previously at the at the at
Speaker 2: the beginning of this year, started to see like a
Speaker 2: lot of pushback. We started to see direct sort of
Speaker 2: attacks on this idea of climate disclosure, and we started
Speaker 2: to see sort of little brush fires pop up in
Speaker 2: different states, you know, attacking the idea of disclosing climate
Speaker 2: information like this, and we thought, well, you know that's
Speaker 2: pretty interesting, that's really interesting. Yeah right, yeah, yeah, So,
Speaker 2: you know, it all kind of kicked off, especially with
Speaker 2: a bill that became law in Texas, which you know,
Speaker 2: it was called kind of colloquially the Fossil Boycott Rule,
Speaker 2: which said that you know, the state of Texas will
Speaker 2: no longer do business with any company that quote unquote
Speaker 2: Boycott's fossil fuels, and that became a law in the state,
Speaker 2: and you know, we said, well, that's that's interesting. This
Speaker 2: isn't coming from nowhere, you know, So we started kind
Speaker 2: of filing records requests around around the states, looking for
Speaker 2: initially just communications between you know, the Texas Comptroller, which
Speaker 2: is what they call their treasure and other sort of
Speaker 2: of state officials that would be potentially pushing these boycott
Speaker 2: bills in different states. And as we got started to
Speaker 2: get some of these records back, you know, it wasn't
Speaker 2: exactly what we anticipated. We kind of anticipated this group,
Speaker 2: the Texas Public Policy Foundation was maybe you know, driving
Speaker 2: this in the back seat to a large degree, and
Speaker 2: you know, it actually turns out they are really involved.
Speaker 2: But there's this other group called the State Financial Officers
Speaker 2: Foundation that was acting as this really important central node
Speaker 2: of a much wider campaign to fight climate policy in
Speaker 2: general that you know, included this web of dark money
Speaker 2: groups that did include, like I said, the Texas Public
Speaker 2: Policy Foundation, but other major national political players like Heritage,
Speaker 2: the American Legislative Exchange Council ALEC, and some of the
Speaker 2: you know, kind of the most powerful dark money groups
Speaker 2: in the United States.
Speaker 1: Wow, that is so interesting, so so interesting. Okay, So
Speaker 1: that tipped you off like that, This random I mean,
Speaker 1: it's such a perfect, like innocuous sounding group, right.
Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly, Yeah, hiding behind their very boring name.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So what are they and what were they getting
Speaker 1: up to?
Speaker 2: So the State Financial Officers Foundation is a nonprofit group.
Speaker 2: They kind of build themselves as a group of state
Speaker 2: treasurers that are interested in the quote unquote free market,
Speaker 2: which is really interesting. That's usually sort of code word
Speaker 2: as I'm sure you and many other people know for
Speaker 2: you know, Republican like righting politics, and that's kind of
Speaker 2: what they had been since they're founding about ten years ago.
Speaker 2: But they didn't, you know, they weren't really weighing into
Speaker 2: major national issues. Like the things that they were focused
Speaker 2: on were really within the realm of financial officers of states,
Speaker 2: you know, pension you know, like retirement plans, college savings plans,
Speaker 2: that kind of thing. But we see about a year
Speaker 2: ago this group of state financial officers foundation, they really
Speaker 2: shift their focus and become completely obsessed with climate measures
Speaker 2: and talking about climate change and repeating you know these
Speaker 2: like really old lines on climate denial. You know, CO
Speaker 2: two isn't bad for you, it's causing a great greeting
Speaker 2: of the earth, and all of these efforts to.
Speaker 1: Hit in the wayback machine.
Speaker 2: Yes exactly. Yeah, we've heard all this before and kind
Speaker 2: of thought some of it had you know, kind of
Speaker 2: passed into into messaging that doesn't work anymore. But sure enough,
Speaker 2: you know, here it is again at the state level.
Speaker 1: Wow, Wow. So okay, so they had this big shift
Speaker 1: last year starting to talk about climate and ESG all
Speaker 1: the time and whatnot. What did you find about what
Speaker 1: kind of drove that shift?
Speaker 2: Well, So, I mean, just just to like one more
Speaker 2: thing kind of how they operate. They're really closely tied,
Speaker 2: like I said, to the American Legislative Exchange Council, and
Speaker 2: they have a lot of similar attributes. One of those
Speaker 2: is that they have you know, two or more yearly
Speaker 2: meetings where they get together all their Republican treasure and
Speaker 2: all of their corporate sponsors and they go to fancy
Speaker 2: dinners and they kind of talk about, you know, how
Speaker 2: they're going to you know, strategize on whatever the issue
Speaker 2: of the day is. Well that you know, about a
Speaker 2: year ago, that issue of the day, like I said,
Speaker 2: became opposing climate finance policy kind of in many different ways,
Speaker 2: but it really coalesced around attacking policies by large financial
Speaker 2: institutions like Black Rock, and moves in the financial sphere
Speaker 2: of you know, by like the Securities and Exchange Commission
Speaker 2: or the Department of Labor where these agencies are saying
Speaker 2: you should disclose climate risks and that and that sort
Speaker 2: of thing. So yeah, so they they kind of shifted
Speaker 2: from talking about more financial stuff to these really kind
Speaker 2: of hard line climate issues, and they invited in like
Speaker 2: a key turning point here is when they was when
Speaker 2: this other dark money group called Consumers Research became a
Speaker 2: top fiscal sponsor of the State Finance Officers Foundation. And
Speaker 2: then you see the agenda of these, you know, yearly gatherings.
Speaker 2: These meetings shift like almost completely over to how do
Speaker 2: we attack black Rock, how do we stop climate finance
Speaker 2: disclosure rules, how do we take on quote unquote wote capitalism.
Speaker 1: It's so funny because I was reading through your through
Speaker 1: the description on the documented website, and as soon as
Speaker 1: I as I saw woke capitalism, I was like, oh god,
Speaker 1: I'm sure there's like a Peter Teal strive capital uh
Speaker 1: say here. Sure enough. It was like two paragraphs later,
Speaker 1: I was like, there it is, so yeah, tell me
Speaker 1: about this is this is like a thing right in
Speaker 1: the last year or two of these kind of libertarian
Speaker 1: folks being all up in arms about ESG and quote
Speaker 1: unquote woke capitalism. What what's that about?
Speaker 2: Well it's a great example of how uh, you know,
Speaker 2: these sort of republican dark money groups are really good
Speaker 2: at creating a like a fake thing to attack and
Speaker 2: really kind of driving it into reality, you know, from
Speaker 2: a very niche, very like sort of off the wall
Speaker 2: issue that nobody is talking about to now. You know,
Speaker 2: you hear Mike Pence talk about it, You hear it's
Speaker 2: on Fox News every day like to you know, now
Speaker 2: it's really kind of taken taken been taken up by
Speaker 2: the zeitgeist. And like I said, really I think you
Speaker 2: can trace that back to a large degree to groups
Speaker 2: like consumers Research, who you know, they kind of saw
Speaker 2: the writing on the wall. They saw that, you know,
Speaker 2: climate policy was really stalling in most places, but one
Speaker 2: place that it wasn't really stalling and was continuing to
Speaker 2: move was in this financial world. And like I said,
Speaker 2: you know, the SEC was taking up rules and these
Speaker 2: large financial asset managers were saying, we have to take
Speaker 2: climate change into account, you know, in our investments. And
Speaker 2: so they kind of said this is quote unquote wote
Speaker 2: capitalism and black Rock is a vulte capitalist, which is
Speaker 2: kind of ridiculous if you know anything about Blackrock right there,
Speaker 2: you know, I mean, WOK doesn't really have a meaning necessarily,
Speaker 2: but they're.
Speaker 1: Just capitalism is an oxymoron. That's it's just yeah, it
Speaker 1: just is.
Speaker 2: But it allowed them to sort of, in this really
Speaker 2: new and interesting way, meld defense of the fossil fuel
Speaker 2: industry with the culture war, and it was way more
Speaker 2: successful than other attempts like this. And you know, this
Speaker 2: group of State Financial Officers Foundation, because they were made
Speaker 2: up of treasures, state treasurers who actually have a lot
Speaker 2: of power over financial decisions in their states. You know,
Speaker 2: they elevated this group, the State Financial Officers Foundation, into
Speaker 2: this really key weapon against climate policy.
Speaker 1: That's so interesting because I feel like it kind of
Speaker 1: coincides with with a lot of folks in the climate
Speaker 1: movement kind of. I mean, a lot of people have
Speaker 1: been very focused on the financial sector for a long time,
Speaker 1: the divestment movement and all of that, right, But I
Speaker 1: feel like there's just in the last year to people
Speaker 1: who had traditionally kind of been like finance and you know,
Speaker 1: it scares me. I have been, you know, have been
Speaker 1: kind of turning towards it too. So it's interesting that
Speaker 1: these guys sort of anticipated more attention in that realm.
Speaker 1: So what are some of the things that they've been
Speaker 1: able to accomplish well.
Speaker 2: So they've passed laws in five states and are aimed
Speaker 2: at passing laws in twenty more states that are based
Speaker 2: off of this sort of fossil fuel boycott rule, which
Speaker 2: there's different sort of model policies that they're passing around.
Speaker 2: The end result is kind of all the same, which
Speaker 2: is to either scare asset managers into backing away from
Speaker 2: their climate promises or to get rid of the asset
Speaker 2: managers that have climate promises. And that's you know, that's
Speaker 2: that's been a really sort of big and interesting piece
Speaker 2: of this like sort of wide ranging campaign. But they're
Speaker 2: also doing, you know a lot of other things. They're
Speaker 2: opposing federal nominees to you know, like key positions in
Speaker 2: federal government that oversee you know, financial measures. They're sending
Speaker 2: comments to rules that are signed by the Treasures. So
Speaker 2: they look you know like very legitimate and look very serious,
Speaker 2: but yet they're all kind of coordinated behind the scenes
Speaker 2: by this other national group, and they're they're also just
Speaker 2: kind of, like I said, just figuring out how to
Speaker 2: kind of scare the financial industry away from over talk
Speaker 2: about climate change.
Speaker 1: That is a big deal because I feel like it's
Speaker 1: just been kind of this innocuous thing in the background
Speaker 1: for like twenty years, you know, and yeah, you're right,
Speaker 1: like for a long long time the oil companies, it
Speaker 1: was more like something that they seem to see as
Speaker 1: a helpful tool for them to relaunch.
Speaker 2: Honestly, totally. Yeah. I mean we've heard the oil industry say,
Speaker 2: you know, this is a great way to access low
Speaker 2: cost capital because all we have to do is disclose
Speaker 2: X and Y, and then suddenly, you know, we get
Speaker 2: cheaper money from it. So you know, it's not and
Speaker 2: I think this is another really interesting thing about this,
Speaker 2: and you know, you kind of hear ALEX leader Lisa
Speaker 2: Nelson talk about this recently. She talked about this recently.
Speaker 2: But you know, they did polling on Blackrock and what
Speaker 2: they found was that Democrats don't like Blackrock. It's nobody
Speaker 2: large corporation in the wall. Yeah, and now Republicans don't
Speaker 2: like Blackrock. So they were able to kind of do
Speaker 2: this great, uh, you know, sort of pivot to where
Speaker 2: they're the you know, they're the people that are opposing
Speaker 2: you know, corporate power, and they're the ones that are
Speaker 2: doing corporate accountability, which you know, and it isn't really true,
Speaker 2: but it does it does kind of scramble their opposition
Speaker 2: in a way. Who's who's used to being the people
Speaker 2: that stand up for the people against against large corporations,
Speaker 2: and now it kind of looks like they are, you know.
Speaker 1: So interesting. Did you do get any sense of like
Speaker 1: what happened that made them go from thinking this is
Speaker 1: a handy tool too, this is a threat. Did you
Speaker 1: get any sense of that from any of these documents
Speaker 1: or just from you know, being immersed in it in general? Yeah?
Speaker 2: Sure, I mean you have to look at who's behind
Speaker 2: the State Financial Officers Foundation, you know, I mentioned ALEC Heritage. Yeah,
Speaker 2: so they've played really key roles in all of this,
Speaker 2: and you know, they're dark money groups, so we don't
Speaker 2: actually know who's funding them behind the scenes, but we
Speaker 2: do know that, you know, these are the places that
Speaker 2: a lot of these larger quote unquote culture war messaging
Speaker 2: sort of campaigns come from. You know, so I think
Speaker 2: large national groups basically saw a political advantage to going
Speaker 2: after this, and as they did their thing, as they
Speaker 2: did polling, as they did you know, as they did
Speaker 2: the various measurements that they do, they kind of saw
Speaker 2: that it was it was being rather successful. So I
Speaker 2: think that it was really you know, like I said,
Speaker 2: these large national dark money political groups that saw this
Speaker 2: as a as a as a powerful tool, and it
Speaker 2: kind of filtered down into the state level because of that,
Speaker 2: because you know, you have to look at this sort
Speaker 2: of incentive structure that these state treasurers have. If they
Speaker 2: talk about wote capitalism, suddenly they're going to the big
Speaker 2: Heritage Foundation meeting with all of the biggest funders in
Speaker 2: the Republican Party in d C. You know, sfof got
Speaker 2: a huge award from Heritage Foundation this last year, and
Speaker 2: they took a lot of key treasures with them, you know,
Speaker 2: to this big meeting where they you know, were feeded
Speaker 2: by you know, some of the biggest you know funders around.
Speaker 2: So politically, for these state treasurers, it's a great deal
Speaker 2: to get attention for doing something like this. They get
Speaker 2: to go on Tucker Carlson, you know, so you know,
Speaker 2: they have an incentive to do this since it's being
Speaker 2: supported by Heritage and now like and others.
Speaker 1: It makes me wonder too if maybe they sort of
Speaker 1: realized or noticed that this was an area that would
Speaker 1: be less I don't know, like less touched by the
Speaker 1: whole litigation strategy. You know, Like I know, I've heard
Speaker 1: people talk about, well, if policy fails and litigation is
Speaker 1: getting you know, ultimately gummed up at the Supreme Court,
Speaker 1: we should be leaning on the fed right to like
Speaker 1: embrace certain financial policies. And it makes me wonder if
Speaker 1: these groups start like we're like, Okay, what's the one
Speaker 1: place that's not really touched by by our court strategy,
Speaker 1: and it's it's finance and insurance. I wonder if they're
Speaker 1: if they're looking at the insurance industry as part of
Speaker 1: this too. When I say they, I mean like Heritage
Speaker 1: and ALEC and all of those groups.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's a great question. I would say. You know,
Speaker 2: they kind of are very upfront about why the treasures,
Speaker 2: why finance? And you know Riley Moore, the treasure of
Speaker 2: West Virginia, who's a real leader of all of this,
Speaker 2: was actually on a podcast with the with SFOF, the
Speaker 2: head of SFOF, and he was talking about why the
Speaker 2: state treasures are so perfect as a weapon against climate policy,
Speaker 2: and he said, you know, the attorney's generals, they have
Speaker 2: to work through the courts. I speak with the taxpayers
Speaker 2: money with the stroke of my pen I can change
Speaker 2: things and it doesn't have to go through the court system.
Speaker 2: And you know, sure enough, the law that Riley Moore
Speaker 2: got passed in West and West Virginia this last year,
Speaker 2: it gave him the power, even more power than the
Speaker 2: treasurer already had to decide who the state's going to
Speaker 2: invest with. And you know, then you saw, you know,
Speaker 2: just in the last month, Riley Moore kicked you know,
Speaker 2: five large asset managers out of the state, you know,
Speaker 2: with that newfound power. So they see the treasurers as
Speaker 2: this you know, sort of extra judicial you know, power
Speaker 2: center that they can exploit a little bit. And you know,
Speaker 2: it obviously fits into a larger you know, right wing
Speaker 2: strategy of sort of mobilizing down ballot elected officials. So
Speaker 2: you know, it fits into this larger trend. But I
Speaker 2: think the treasures they're in a particularly good place to
Speaker 2: kind of cause havoc here.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, So what impact is having on the financial sector?
Speaker 1: Are they do you have any sense of like, you know,
Speaker 1: is JP Morgan like, oh no, maybe we should rethink
Speaker 1: this strategy because we're getting kicked out of West Virginia
Speaker 1: or are they like whatever, this is not a big
Speaker 1: deal to us.
Speaker 2: It seems like they don't know how to handle the pressure.
Speaker 2: You know. I mean, these giant asset managers, they're so big,
Speaker 2: they're so used to being the giant, you know, the
Speaker 2: biggest fish in the in the pond.
Speaker 1: Yeah, like calling the shots, right, Like I mean, usually
Speaker 1: it's like everyone competing for their business, not them having
Speaker 1: to worry about who wants to do business with them.
Speaker 1: So yeah, that's interesting. So yeah, sorry I interrupted you,
Speaker 1: but you were saying they're not sure how to handle it.
Speaker 2: No, yeah, no, that's exactly right. Yeah, So I mean
Speaker 2: we get I get the feeling that, you know, Blackrock,
Speaker 2: they just don't they don't know what to do with
Speaker 2: this criticism. You saw them after the Texas law was passed.
Speaker 2: You saw them hire lobbyists for the time in Texas.
Speaker 2: Who did they hire. They hired oil and gas industry lobbyist.
Speaker 2: What did they do. They went around to you know,
Speaker 2: key Texas officials and said, you know, we love oil
Speaker 2: and gas. Here's all of our oil and gas investments.
Speaker 2: We're always going to continue to invest in oil and gas.
Speaker 2: You know, you saw them do that in other states
Speaker 2: as well, so you know, you do see remarkable change
Speaker 2: in tone. I'd also say, you know, in West Virginia,
Speaker 2: you know, we just I just mentioned that Riley Moore
Speaker 2: kicked out five or said that, you know, these five
Speaker 2: large asset management companies can no longer do business with
Speaker 2: the state. Well, there were six asset management companies that
Speaker 2: were under review, right but one one company, US Bank
Speaker 2: Court apparently walked back their climate stances enough to continue
Speaker 2: to be able to do business with the state, you know,
Speaker 2: and and Riley Moore and others, you know, considered this
Speaker 2: a huge win obviously because they've forced you know, US
Speaker 2: Bank Corp. To you know, change in some way. And
Speaker 2: we don't have all the details on that yet, but
Speaker 2: you know, US Bank Corp. Was not put on the
Speaker 2: boycott list. So yeah, I mean, I think that there
Speaker 2: are definitely changes happening as a response to this campaign,
Speaker 2: and I think that's why we'll see this kind of
Speaker 2: campaign continue. You know, I don't think that this is
Speaker 2: by any means.
Speaker 1: Over And I mean, what kind of impact can this
Speaker 1: have on taxpayers in the state if you know, large
Speaker 1: pots of capital are suddenly like not not at play
Speaker 1: in their state.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well that's kind of you know, this is where
Speaker 2: we get to like how this is also bizarre because
Speaker 2: you know, there was a big study that just came
Speaker 2: out that was looking at the Texas law and looking
Speaker 2: at the changes that Texas is making in response to
Speaker 2: that law and in response to state investments, and pensioners
Speaker 2: in Texas are set to lose like hundreds of millions
Speaker 2: of dollars because of this. So it is actually really hurting,
Speaker 2: you know, the people that are trusting these publican states
Speaker 2: with their pensions and with their investments.
Speaker 1: Can they be sued then for that under the like
Speaker 1: what is it ezvere laws where like the people in
Speaker 1: charge of pensions have to be acting, you know, in
Speaker 1: the best interests of returns for the people enrolled in
Speaker 1: those pensions.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't know, that's a great question. But you know,
Speaker 2: that's another side of this whole campaign is that they're
Speaker 2: actually also mobilizing attorneys generals to say it is illegal,
Speaker 2: it is against the fiduciary duty to take into account
Speaker 2: these climate disclosure rules. So if you as a pension
Speaker 2: fund this happened to Kentucky, if you as a pension fund,
Speaker 2: you know, are talking about ESG and other climate disclosure
Speaker 2: rules and making decisions off that you are you are
Speaker 2: violating your conduciary duty.
Speaker 1: That's so interesting because I feel like that could just
Speaker 1: be easily disproved by objective data on like financial performance, right,
Speaker 1: you know, where you could say, well, actually, this fund
Speaker 1: that consider these things outperformed this fund that didn't, you know,
Speaker 1: buy x percent or whatever. That's so interesting, that's really
Speaker 1: really interesting.
Speaker 2: Well, we're just going back to the sort of the
Speaker 2: climate like the really straight up climate science denial that
Speaker 2: undergirds a lot of this. I mean, I guess, I
Speaker 2: guess I just don't know how much reality right they
Speaker 2: sent to this, you know what I'm saying. I mean,
Speaker 2: And it's also just so blatantly hypocritical because you know,
Speaker 2: that's what they're accusing, you know, these large asset management
Speaker 2: funds of doing is you know, is hurting the people
Speaker 2: that are invested in them by not investing enough in
Speaker 2: fossil fuels when you know it's the exact opposite, right, true.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Like I think it's it's interesting, right because it's like, oh,
Speaker 1: we're going to just change this reality by pretending it's
Speaker 1: not true. I mean, that's kind of across the board
Speaker 1: of thing with these folks. But it's wild to see
Speaker 1: it in the financial space. I think it's like particularly
Speaker 1: strange to it in a space it's not many like
Speaker 1: numbers and objective data.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 1: Wow.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And I don't know if you feel this way,
Speaker 2: but you know, I mean because you've you've done so
Speaker 2: much amazing work on climate science denial and sort of
Speaker 2: all the contours of that. But you know this this honestly,
Speaker 2: it feels like an older It feels like science denial
Speaker 2: from ten years ago or something. You know, it does,
Speaker 2: it does.
Speaker 1: It's really weird that it's working so well. I forgot
Speaker 1: to ask you how are treasurers? Are they appointed or
Speaker 1: are they elected?
Speaker 2: It changes state to state. Most treasures are elected officials.
Speaker 2: There most treasures are sort of constitutional constitutional officials where
Speaker 2: you know they're elected separately and you know their job
Speaker 2: is sort of written into the state's constitution. There are
Speaker 2: a couple of states that are appointed, like Georgia's treasurers appointed.
Speaker 2: But that's that's more the exceptions in the rule.
Speaker 1: Okay, So is there any for to either from on
Speaker 1: the you know, Republican side, to get more you know,
Speaker 1: Republican treasures elected, or on the Democrat side to try
Speaker 1: to take back some of these positions.
Speaker 2: Well, that's certainly something that we're watching as the midterms
Speaker 2: come up. You know, there's a number of sfo F
Speaker 2: treasurers that are up for reelection or you know moving,
Speaker 2: you know, trying to get electric position. So you know,
Speaker 2: I think that it's going to be a really interesting
Speaker 2: space to watch.
Speaker 1: Hot state treasure race. Not a thing we've ever really
Speaker 1: paid attention to. Now we need to Wow wow, Yeah,
Speaker 1: so interesting, awesome. Is there any kind of aspect of
Speaker 1: this we didn't talk about that you think is important
Speaker 1: to draw people's attention to.
Speaker 2: Well, I mean, I think there's a couple of interesting things. One,
Speaker 2: you know, you mentioned Strive asset Management and the back
Speaker 2: Ramaswami earlier, and we didn't really get a chance to
Speaker 2: talk about that. But it's a really kind of fascinating
Speaker 2: subtext all of this is that there are these you know,
Speaker 2: people that are really important in this greater campaign against
Speaker 2: climate disclosure. You know, so there's sort of the big
Speaker 2: talking heads of the campaign, but they also have for
Speaker 2: profit entities that are set to profit from this campaign
Speaker 2: to drive money away from Blackrock. In the case of
Speaker 2: Vivek Ramaswami, you know, he set up this group called
Speaker 2: Strive Asset Management, which is the unwoke asset manager manager.
Speaker 2: So so while Vivek has spent the last two years,
Speaker 2: you know, helping orchestrate this campaign to drive West Virginia
Speaker 2: and other states to divest from Blackrock, he also set
Speaker 2: up a company that's waiting there with open arms to
Speaker 2: catch the money that he's shaking out of the tree.
Speaker 1: Didn't like a lot of the founding capital for Strive
Speaker 1: come from Peter Thiel.
Speaker 2: Yes, right, yeah, roads back to Peterfield. Yes, no, you
Speaker 2: know he did. And he's also hired a bunch of
Speaker 2: of the you know, the people that have really undergirded
Speaker 2: this anti climate campaign for a long time. You know,
Speaker 2: he's hired people from these other dark money groups that
Speaker 2: are really well connected in this sort of network, so
Speaker 2: that you know, the circle is complete between the nonprofit
Speaker 2: political organizations that are campaigning to push black Rock out
Speaker 2: of these states and the for profit side that's sitting
Speaker 2: there waiting for the money. You know, they're they're literally
Speaker 2: the same people. And I feel like with these sort
Speaker 2: of you know, quote unquote culture war issues, you don't
Speaker 2: see the profit motive that clearly all the time so
Speaker 2: that's another really interesting piece about this. And then nonprofit motive.
Speaker 2: I think the other thing to talk about would be,
Speaker 2: you know, the fossil fuel industries precipason in this right.
Speaker 2: There's been other efforts obviously to kind of mobilize you know,
Speaker 2: sort of the culture warriors to the defense of the
Speaker 2: fossil fuel industry. I don't think it's ever been as
Speaker 2: successful as it is now. But you know, we in
Speaker 2: our research, we saw the American Patrolling Institute, the largest
Speaker 2: you know, fossil fuel lobbyists in the country, having meetings
Speaker 2: with sfof you know, like helping support their messaging, you know,
Speaker 2: giving these treasures pats on the back for the good
Speaker 2: work that they're doing. And you know that's another instance
Speaker 2: of this you know, obvious profit motive undergirding this campaign
Speaker 2: that you know is about you know, opposing China and
Speaker 2: communism and capitalism and stuff.
Speaker 1: The China thing is such an old talking point too.
Speaker 1: It's just like, yeah, yeah, is there any sense given
Speaker 1: that this Riley More guy is is West Virginia's state treasure?
Speaker 1: Is there any sense that this any of this stuff
Speaker 1: has had an impact on Joe Mansion's kind of persistent
Speaker 1: obstructionism on climate policy.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's a great question. I mean, you know, West Virginia,
Speaker 2: the political world there is actually like it's kind of small,
Speaker 2: you know, so you know, I mean we see people
Speaker 2: that are have been close the aligned with Joe Manscheen
Speaker 2: for a long time that have become lobbyists that are
Speaker 2: sort of involved in this effort. You know, we don't know,
Speaker 2: you know, we obviously don't know what Joe Manchen thinks
Speaker 2: about this or what Riley Moore, you know, how Riley
Speaker 2: Moore wants to use you know, Joe Manchen if he
Speaker 2: does to help accomplish this campaign. But there's you know,
Speaker 2: I mean there is, there's overlapping personnel there. But yeah,
Speaker 2: we just don't have a ton of information on that.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, awesome. All right, Well I appreciate you walking
Speaker 1: me through it and also just doing all this work
Speaker 1: in general. Will link to the investigation in the show
Speaker 1: notes so people can go check that out. It's so
Speaker 1: interesting and it's just like this totally new area that
Speaker 1: I don't think anyone has been paying attention to. So
Speaker 1: so yeah, appreciate you drawing folks attention to it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Well, thank you very much. Yeah, it's a pleasure
Speaker 2: to talk to you.
Speaker 1: Drilled is an original critical frequency production, mixing, mastering, and
Speaker 1: original music by Peter Duff. The show is reported and
Speaker 1: written by me Amy Westervelt. Our First Amendment attorney is
Speaker 1: James Wheaton of the First Amendment Project. Our artwork is
Speaker 1: done by Matthew Fleming. You can find us online at
Speaker 1: Drilled podcast dot com, where we post various articles related
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