{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["https://www.thune.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/press-releases?ID=D99F4F91-82A5-42EE-8FD4-852158E5CDBF", "Thune: Biden Administration\u2019s Radical ESG Policies Have Real-World Impacts", "2022-12-07", "2022", "2022-12", "Republican", "Senate", "SD", "John Thune", "T000250", "www.thune.senate.gov", "thune", "https://www.thune.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/press-releases", "scraper", "Click here to watch the video.\n\nWASHINGTON \u2014 U.S. Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.) today expressed his concerns regarding President Biden\u2019s far-reaching environmental, social, and governance (ESG) agenda. Thune noted that the administration has failed to examine the impact ESG policies will have on the price of food and energy, and he warns that these overreaching regulations could result in serious consequences for essential industries within our economy.\n\nThune\u2019s remarks below (as prepared for delivery):\n\n\u201cMr. President, when it comes to the actions of a party or a presidential administration, legislation sometimes grabs the lion\u2019s share of the attention.\n\n\u201cBut it\u2019s equally important to pay attention to what a presidential administration does with its regulatory power.\n\n\u201cAnd the Biden administration has been characterized by a lot of deeply troubling regulations.\n\n\u201cThe so-called Inflation Reduction Act may be Democrats\u2019 most prominent Green New Deal effort, but the Biden administration\u2019s radical environmental agenda doesn\u2019t stop there.\n\n\u201cThe president has also been using regulations to push through Democrats\u2019 Green New Deal fantasies.\n\n\u201cAnd these ill-considered, overreaching regulations could have very serious consequences.\n\n\u201cLater today, I will send a letter to the president about his attempts to use financial and securities regulators like the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Federal Reserve to push through environmental, social, and governance \u2013 or ESG \u2013 regulations that seek to choke off investment to essential industries like oil and natural gas and American farms and ranches.\n\n\u201cNotable among these is the Securities and Exchange Commission\u2019s proposed climate-disclosure rule, which would require publicly traded companies to disclose information not only about their own greenhouse gas emissions but also about those of their suppliers and even their customers.\n\n\u201cIt would also require companies to determine the effects of climate-related risks on each line item of their consolidated financial statements.\n\n\u201cTo start with, this rule is obviously unworkable.\n\n\u201cCompanies have zero control over the emissions of their suppliers and customers, and little to no ability to accurately gauge those emissions.\n\n\u201cBut the most serious aspect of this proposed rule is the fact that it represents a clear effort to coerce companies to sever ties with certain industries \u2013 notably, of course, the conventional energy industry, but also with other industries like agriculture.\n\n\u201cAnd it\u2019s hardly the only regulatory action of its kind proposed by the Biden administration.\n\n\u201cThe Department of Labor just finalized a rule that would, in practice, require pension fiduciaries to consider climate change and ESG factors when making investment decisions, irrespective of their pecuniary relevance.\n\n\u201cThe Federal Reserve \u2013 which I believe has zero business inserting itself into debates over climate policy \u2013 recently established a pilot program to analyze climate-related financial risks for the nation\u2019s largest banks \u2013 something that clearly exceeds the Fed\u2019s statutory authority.\n\n\u201cSimilarly, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, and the Fed have issued draft principles for large banks on \u2018climate-related financial risk management.\u2019\n\n\u201cAnd the list goes on.\n\n\u201cMr. President, private companies, of course, have the right to consider whatever factors they want when determining what companies they will do business with and what they will invest in.\n\n\u201cBut the federal government should not be making those decisions for them.\n\n\u201cThe president and his cronies in the far-left environmental movement may like the idea of choking off investment to the fossil fuel industry and other industries to hasten the arrival of their fantasy Green New Deal future.\n\n\u201cBut reducing or eliminating investment in conventional energy and other essential industries is likely to create a nightmare for American families and American businesses.\n\n\u201cI am \u2013 and have long been \u2013 a strong supporter of alternative energy.\n\n\u201cBut the fact of the matter is, we are still a long way away from being able to rely exclusively on alternative energy.\n\n\u201cThe technology that would enable us to rely solely on green energy simply doesn\u2019t exist yet.\n\n\u201cAnd pretending that we can rely exclusively on alternative energy isn\u2019t going to change the reality, which is that we still need oil and natural gas \u2013 and will continue to need them for the foreseeable future.\n\n\u201cChoking off investment to the conventional energy industry isn\u2019t going to magically bring about the Green New Deal future.\n\n\u201cBut it is going to reduce essential energy supplies.\n\n\u201cAnd that in turn is going to increase energy prices.\n\n\u201cIt\u2019s going to increase energy prices for American families.\n\n\u201cAnd it\u2019s going to increase energy prices for American businesses.\n\n\u201cIf Democrats succeed in reducing investment in oil and natural gas, we could be looking at a very serious reduction in our supply of conventional energy \u2013 and correspondingly serious price hikes.\n\n\u201cAnd there\u2019s reason to be concerned that Democrats aren\u2019t just interested in choking off investment in oil and natural gas, but in agriculture as well because of natural livestock emissions and farming inputs like fertilizer.\n\n\u201cThe National Credit Union Administration published a since-rescinded strategic plan that seemed to recommend that credit unions reduce their membership and loan offerings in farming communities.\n\n\u201cAnd South Dakota banks and credit unions have repeatedly expressed their concerns to my office that the president\u2019s far-reaching ESG agenda could ultimately damage their ability to extend capital to their farm and ranch clients.\n\n\u201cShould investment in agriculture also drop off, we could be looking not only at higher energy prices but at higher food prices as well \u2013 and, possibly, actual food supply issues.\n\n\u201cAnd between higher energy prices and higher food prices, the kind of financial hardship Americans have been experiencing during our current inflation crisis could become a fixture for the long term.\n\n\u201cMr. President, Democrats still like to think of themselves as the party of the little guy.\n\n\u201cBut the truth is, they\u2019ve become the party of extreme special interests.\n\n\u201cAnd the little guy often ends up getting sacrificed as a result.\n\n\u201cSince President Biden and Democrats took office two years ago, ordinary Americans have faced almost nonstop financial challenges thanks to the inflation crisis Democrats helped create with their massive American Rescue Plan spending bill.\n\n\u201cAnd if the president\u2019s ESG agenda continues unchecked, that diminished prosperity could last indefinitely.\n\n\u201cIn the letter I will send to the president later today, I urge his administration to consider the real-world effects of rules and regulations on ordinary families and American businesses \u2013 and to refrain from regulatory actions that would drive up prices even further.\n\n\u201cI hope the president will listen.\n\n\u201cBut if past is prologue, then I am worried that we are looking at two more years of extreme Democrat policies \u2013 and two more years of economic suffering for the American people.", 1, "2026-03-30T01:40:41Z", "2026-04-06T18:41:06Z"]], "columns": ["url", "title", "date", "year", "month", "party", "chamber", "state", "member_name", "bioguide_id", "domain", "scraper", "source", "date_source", "text", "has_text", "collected_at", "updated_at"], "primary_keys": ["url"], "primary_key_values": ["https://www.thune.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/press-releases?ID=D99F4F91-82A5-42EE-8FD4-852158E5CDBF"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 1.5375411603599787, "source": "dwillis/congress-press", "source_url": 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