The Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts, the state’s principal fiscal officer, has dispatched letters to nineteen financial institutions found to have oil and gas divestment policies, according to the agency’s findings.
According to Senate Bill (SB) 13, enacted in 2021, the auditor is obligated to withdraw state investments from corporations with fossil energy divestment policies.
“A few corporations are reiterating promises made by the Biden administration regarding a ‘transition’ to green energy,” said Comptroller Glenn Hegar. “Electric automobiles, solar and wind power generation, and other renewable energy sources can meet our energy demands and that, if we simply cease investment in oil and gas, the shift will be rapid and simple.”
According to the letters, the institutions are asked to respond with a statement outlining their policy on fossil fuel investment as well as a list of portfolio funds that “prohibit or limit investments in fossil fuels.”
If no answer is obtained within 60 days of the letter’s receipt, the government will deem the corporation “a fossil energy boycotter.”
A further series of letters will be sent out shortly to more than a hundred other publicly-traded investment organizations, which may not have specific rules in place (as the initial nineteen companies addressed allegedly do) but are reported to have “one or more funds shunning fossil fuels.”
“Our preliminary data indicates that certain corporations are promising us and all the energy-producing areas one thing, and afterward flipping around and informing their liberal customers in other regions another thing,” said Hegar.
BlackRock, one of the world’s largest investment firms, has been accused of engaging in this practice.
Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick singled the company out in January and requested that Hegar add the corporation to the “top of the list” of fossil-boycotting companies.
At the time, The Texan obtained data revealing that the Teacher Retirement Fund, the state’s largest pension system, had around $7.5 billion invested in BlackRock stock or funds, according to the documents.
BlackRock CEO Larry Fink has stated that the company will not divest from oil and gas companies.
However, in his 2022 Letter to CEOs, the CEO wrote, “We focus on sustainability not because we’re environmentalists, but because we are capitalists and fiduciaries to our clients,” on behalf of BlackRock, and suggested that green initiatives are critical to long-term economic interests.
Two years ago, Fink stated that climate risk is investment risk and has become a powerful supporter of sustainable investing. In 2021, he released a letter that said BlackRock would be pushing companies to disclose their plans for eliminating greenhouse gas emissions by 2050.
“These statements show that BlackRock is unjustly discriminatory against the oil and gas companies by abandoning assets solely because firms do not commit to a ‘net zero’ policy above what is needed by law,” said Lt. Governor Dan Patrick.
The comptroller declared this month that government funds would also be withheld from enterprises with ties to Russia in the wake of the country’s invasion of Ukraine.
Below is the full list of firms that received letters:
1. Abrdn PLC
2. BlackRock
3. BNP Paribas
4. Credit Suisse Group AG
5. Danske Bank A/S
6. HSBC Holdings PLC
7. Invesco Ltd.
8. JPMorgan Chase & Co.
9. Jupiter Fund Management PLC
10. Man Group PLC
11. NatWest Group PLC
12. Nordea Bank Abp
13. Rathbones Group PLC
14. Schroders PLC
15. Sumitomo Mitsui Trust Holdings, Inc.
16. Svenska Handelsbanken AB
17. Swedbank AB
18. UBS Group AG
19. Wells Fargo & Company
