Murray Praises Biden Administration Move Not to Enforce Restrictions on Socially- Conscious Investing, Proxy Voting

Murray: “Financial security is about planning for the long term, and the Trump Administration’s requirement that people doing that ignore environmental, social, and governance criteria made about as much sense as telling someone planning a trip they can’t look at a map.”

(Washington, D.C.) – Today, Senator Patty Murray (D-WA), Chair of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee, released the following statement on Department of Labor’s announcement that it would not enforce recent rules from the Trump Administration restricting the use of environmental, social, and governance (ESG) criteria in investment decisions for ERISA plans or making it harder for ERISA plans to exercise shareholder rights through voting proxies.

“This step is a win for workers, retirees, investors, businesses, communities, the environment—everyone. Stopping these rules ensures people investing in their futures are able to make sound decisions to build their financial security while also helping to build a world that is  more just, diverse, and sustainable. Financial security is about planning for the long term, and the Trump Administration’s requirement that people doing that ignore environmental, social, and governance criteria made about as much sense as telling someone planning a trip they can’t look at a map.”

Senator Murray was a harsh critic of the Trump Administration rule restricting ESG investing in ERISA plans. She wrote several letters discussing how the move was at odds not only with efforts across the country to promote diversity and racial equity, and to be more sustainable—but also at odds with what’s best for workers and retirees given evidence that ESG investments provide comparable returns and potentially lower risk to traditional funds, but actually have outperformed such traditional investments in the past several years. Senator Murray also led a letter criticizing the Trump Administration’s proxy voting proposal.

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