The Herald-Tribune
Sarasota, Florida
29 July 2022
DeSantis targets investment strategy that emphasizes moral values
By Zac Anderson

Gov. Ron DeSantis is taking aim at a system that helps investors base business decisions on moral values, announcing plans Wednesday to push back against "woke" capital. “We don’t want to see the economy further politicized," DeSantis said during a press conference in Tampa.

The governor is targeting a system used to evaluate companies on environmental, social and governance (ESG) attributes. It seeks to limit investments in companies that some view as socially, environmentally or politically problematic, such as fossil fuel providers or gun companies.

The governor said he plans to prohibit Florida's state pension system from employing ESG evaluations when deciding what companies to invest in. “We also are gonna prohibit Wall Street banks, credit card companies and money transmitters like PayPal from discriminating against customers for their religious, political or social beliefs," DeSantis said. "They’re using things like social credit scores to be able to marginalize people they don’t like.”

Some of the governor's plans can be accomplished through administrative actions, but he also is working on legislation to address these issues. The governor's office elaborated on the proposed legislation in a press release, which states that DeSantis is seeking to "amend Florida’s Deceptive and Unfair Trade Practices statute to prohibit discriminatory practices by large financial institutions based on ESG social credit score metrics."

"This 'ESG score' is a framework created to force companies to meet ESG standards and arbitrarily includes metrics based on political affiliation, religious beliefs, certain industry engagement, and ESG benchmarks. Violations will be considered deceptive, and unfair trade practices will be punished according to the law." The governor was joined Wednesday by incoming Florida House Speaker Paul Renner, who said a global elite is "weaponizing American capitalism against us."

"This is a pocketbook issue and we will not relent until we start dismantling this dangerous form of ESG," Renner said. DeSantis Watch, a left-wing organization opposed to the governor, accused him of "doing the bidding of his large corporate donors and billionaire supporters."

“Florida is ground zero for the climate crisis but once again Ron DeSantis lacks the courage to take any real action to protect the livelihoods of the people of our state,” DeSantis Watch Constituencies Director Natasha Sutherland said in a statement. “Today’s executive order doesn’t take on corporations, it does the bidding of the worst of them by refusing to address their environmental impacts, human rights records, or levels of corruption while the state invests our public tax dollars with them."

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