0:01

In the past few years, there's

0:03

been a major backlash to what's

0:05

called ESG investing. Those

0:08

letters stand for environmental, social,

0:10

and governance, and they refer

0:12

to looking at particular risks

0:14

that a company might have.

0:17

So not just their short-term

0:19

financial performance, but also how they're

0:21

looking at environmental risks to their

0:24

supply chain, for example, or

0:26

social risks in terms of

0:29

whether or not they're tracking

0:31

diversity in their workforce, things

0:34

like that. ESG has been

0:36

around for a really long time, and it's

0:39

mostly been pretty non-controversial

0:42

up until a few years ago. Now

0:44

there's this huge backlash. People are

0:47

calling it quote-unquote woke capital, all

0:49

those kinds of things. And that's

0:51

been driven by a couple of factors. First,

0:55

this increase in the last 10 years

0:57

or so of what's called shareholder

1:00

activism. So when people who

1:02

hold shares in a particular

1:04

company put forth resolutions aimed

1:07

at improving that company's environmental

1:09

or social performance. And

1:11

the second is a move by the

1:13

Securities and Exchange Commission in the US

1:15

that started a few years ago to

1:18

try to provide some kind of consistency

1:20

in the way that companies report on

1:23

climate risk in particular. It's

1:26

always been a little bit loosey-goosey,

1:28

a little bit inconsistent, kind of

1:30

changing from company to company,

1:33

depending on what

1:35

industry they're in, or maybe who's

1:37

auditing their reports, those kinds of

1:39

things. So whenever the SEC

1:42

sees inconsistencies like that in

1:44

a space around investment, they see that

1:46

as their job, to provide the sort

1:49

of consistency and stability that investors are

1:51

looking for. That's why they started to

1:53

tackle this in the first place. And

1:56

when they first announced that they were going to put

1:58

out some kind of climate risk

2:01

disclosure guidance. Initially

2:03

they talked about including what are

2:05

called scope three emissions. Those are

2:07

the emissions associated with the entire

2:09

supply chain. So it's the

2:11

inputs up top and the way

2:13

that your product is used and

2:16

the emissions associated with that. So

2:18

you can imagine lots of companies

2:20

had an issue with this from

2:22

animal ag companies to oil and

2:24

gas companies to big tech companies

2:26

whose data centers are responsible for

2:28

a whole lot of emissions and

2:31

emissions that are growing every day. We've

2:34

covered this before in the podcast but

2:36

a lot of companies fought really hard

2:39

against the inclusion of scope three emissions.

2:42

Today's guest, Andrew Behar, president of

2:44

the ASU SO Foundation which

2:46

focuses on shareholder activism traces

2:49

the backlash back even a little earlier

2:52

to a 2019 decision by a group

2:54

of companies known as the Business

2:56

Roundtable. These

2:59

are guys that for the

3:01

record were very involved in

3:03

pushing climate science denial and

3:05

generally obstructing climate policy for

3:07

years. So not big tree

3:09

hugging liberals by any stretch of

3:11

the imagination. They're some of the

3:13

largest companies in the world that

3:16

they sat down in 2019 and decided

3:18

that the way that companies had been

3:20

operating with this laser focus on short-term

3:22

profits being the only thing that mattered

3:25

was actually not working. But it

3:27

was ultimately harming their own bottom

3:29

lines. So they agreed to

3:31

adopt an approach that they called

3:33

shareholder capitalism. Behar says

3:35

that's what really kicked off a big

3:38

right-wing fight against shareholder activism

3:40

and ESG. We've

3:43

been talking about a sort of activism in

3:45

this series. That's probably one that comes to

3:47

mind more often when people hear the word

3:50

activism, getting out on

3:52

the streets, civil disobedience,

3:54

protest. But this

3:56

is also a type of activism

3:58

and it's also fake. facing a

4:00

big backlash right now. So I wanted

4:02

to talk about it as part of

4:04

this real free speech threat series.

4:07

A lot of the recent fight against shareholder

4:10

activism has been led by a

4:12

guy named Leonard Leo, whose name you

4:14

might recognize if you're a regular

4:16

listener of this podcast. He

4:19

ran the Federalist Society for a

4:21

long time. He's also often the

4:23

guy who's pulling the strings behind

4:25

the Republican Attorneys General Association, or

4:27

RAGA. And in the last couple

4:29

years, he's been a recipient of

4:31

billions of dollars of right wing

4:33

money to continue his crusade against

4:35

any kind of regulation on

4:37

industry, especially regulation on pollution.

4:40

And it just so happens

4:42

that he's not a big

4:44

fan of basic civil rights

4:46

either. So going after

4:48

ESG and shareholder activism

4:50

fits squarely in his

4:53

wheelhouse. One

4:55

of the latest battles in this whole

4:57

anti ESG, anti shareholder activism fight has

5:00

been a string of lawsuits that are

5:02

trying to make it effectively illegal

5:04

for shareholders to put forth

5:07

resolutions around social justice or

5:09

environmental concerns. Exxon's

5:11

filed one of these suits, the

5:13

National Association of Manufacturers has filed

5:15

one, American Airlines. These

5:18

are starting to pick up. And

5:20

again, it's all in the context

5:22

of this interconnected fight against really

5:24

looking at any environmental or social

5:26

justice issues, really trying to separate

5:29

business interests from that to block

5:32

any sort of regulation that would in

5:34

any way curtail a business's ability to

5:37

just focus on profit. And

5:39

of course, again, it's a weird

5:42

fight because in a lot of ways, the things

5:45

they're doing to fight against

5:47

looking at these factors are

5:49

actually harming profit. I

5:52

had a super interesting conversation with Behar

5:54

about all of this that's coming up

5:56

after this quick break. This is drilled

5:58

the real. speech threat

6:00

and I'm Amy Westerfeld. Hey,

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savings are waiting. So

6:30

I want to start with the Exxon

6:32

lawsuit. If you could

6:34

just walk me through what happened

6:48

there. The Exxon lawsuit against Arjuna Capital

6:50

was in response to a shareholder

6:53

resolution that they filed that

6:55

was basically asking for

6:57

climate disclosure and reduction

6:59

of emissions. It

7:01

was not an exceptionally out of

7:04

the ordinary resolution,

7:07

but Exxon rather than going to a no

7:09

action, going to the SEC and saying we

7:12

want to take no action on this resolution,

7:15

which is very standard practice. If a

7:17

company gets a resolution that they feel

7:19

is ordinary business, is

7:22

micromanagement, already

7:24

has substantial implementation, they go to

7:26

the SEC and in fact Exxon

7:29

is famous as being the only

7:31

company or maybe one of a

7:33

few that files a no action on every

7:35

resolution. No, no, exactly. No, no, he's not

7:37

ugly. He's filed 27 resolutions at Exxon since 2010 and we've

7:39

had 27 no actions. We

7:46

know Exxon knows how to file no actions, but

7:49

rather than filing a no action, which

7:51

we expected, they went

7:53

to litigation and

7:56

once the litigation got going,

7:58

Arjuna said, you know what, we'll

8:00

withdraw the resolution. So essentially gave x

8:02

on the win. That's all I was asking

8:05

for. We want you to withdraw the resolution. So don't

8:07

have to put it on our proxy statement. And

8:10

but rather than saying,

8:12

okay, we won great, they said we want

8:14

to continue we want to essentially

8:17

punish this shareholder. And

8:20

we want to make sure that they

8:22

can never file a shareholder resolution again,

8:25

they want to essentially

8:27

classify that there's two

8:29

kinds of shareholders, like

8:32

real shareholders and shareholders who just

8:34

own shares to file resolutions. So

8:37

essentially, what they're trying to do is to rewrite

8:40

property law. When you

8:42

buy a share of stock, you have property

8:44

rights that say that you get to decide

8:46

who's on the board of directors, you get

8:48

to file shareholder resolutions, you get dividends, there's

8:50

basic rules, it's your property

8:52

rights associated with that piece of property.

8:56

And next on trying to do is

8:58

to not only neuter the SEC's power,

9:01

but also to rewrite this whole idea

9:03

of what rights to shareholders have. And

9:06

this is part of a much bigger crusade

9:08

that's been going on that we generally

9:11

refer to as the anti ESG crusade,

9:13

that's been led for

9:16

most part by a fellow named Leonard Leo,

9:18

who you might recognize as being the

9:21

co chair of the Federalist Society, he was given

9:23

$1.6 billion in 2022 mid 2022, essentially to try

9:25

to stop shareholders rights to

9:33

stop shareholders from doing what

9:35

they are allowed by law to do. And

9:39

I can go down that path and tell

9:41

you exactly how he's been doing it because

9:43

the three tiered strategy that they're using, and

9:45

this is just one part of the strategy.

9:47

So this is a much bigger question.

9:50

And it involves

9:52

the House Judiciary Committee, it involves

9:54

filing literally hundreds of bills at

9:57

the state level to make sustainable

10:00

investing illegal to make assessing and

10:02

addressing risk illegal at the state

10:04

level and what the ramifications of

10:06

this have been because it's been

10:08

a financial disaster for the states

10:10

that have adopted these laws. So

10:13

this is much bigger

10:16

piece of work and the Exxon

10:18

lawsuit is just one piece of

10:20

it. There's also several other lawsuits.

10:23

The National Association of Manufacturers lawsuit,

10:25

the American Airlines lawsuit, Chevron deference.

10:27

It's all one thing, which is

10:29

take away shareholders. Basic

10:31

rights interesting to place it in

10:33

the context of all that stuff. I

10:36

guess the anti ESG stuff in general

10:38

feels like an attack on shareholder activism.

10:40

More than a little one. No, that's the centerpiece

10:43

of it. I mean, yeah, really what it is

10:45

is in 2019,

10:47

there was a major decision made by every

10:49

corporation essentially in the world. That

10:52

the ideas of Milton Friedman that

10:54

shareholder primacy no longer

10:56

were working. It was just not working out.

10:58

I mean, if you think about it, shareholder

11:00

primacy, which was put forth in the 1970s.

11:04

By Milton Friedman says you

11:07

can dump in the commons. You

11:10

can have slavery in your supply

11:12

chain. You can poison your customers.

11:14

That's all okay. So long as

11:16

you maximize short

11:18

term profit. And

11:20

for well, back then

11:23

in the 1970s, the holding capacity of

11:25

the atmosphere to hold carbon was much

11:27

greater. The capacity of the

11:29

ocean to hold plastics was much greater. So

11:32

you could be dumping in the commons, but it wasn't going to come

11:34

back and bite you. Like right

11:36

now, what's happening with corporations is their

11:39

supply chains. They can't get raw

11:41

commodities because well, just about everything

11:43

that grows is being

11:45

harmed by climate change. You

11:47

know, cotton production massively down.

11:49

I mean, olive oil, Spain

11:51

and Southern Europe lost their

11:53

entire harvest. Cocoa is now

11:56

the commodity price for cocoa doubled in

11:58

the last year. year. So

12:02

everybody who's seeing all these inflation at

12:04

the grocery store, it's

12:06

because of climate. This is climate inflation,

12:08

but it's also affecting supply chains. So

12:11

dumping in the commons is going to harm the

12:13

corporation that's doing the dumping. That's why in 2019,

12:19

181 companies that make up the business round

12:21

table said, these ideas no

12:23

longer work. This is not good for us.

12:25

It's not good for our shareholders.

12:28

It's not good for all of our stakeholders.

12:30

So we're going to adopt this new idea

12:32

called stakeholder capitalism. You take

12:34

care of your employees. You want to

12:37

be able to really retain

12:39

to attract the best and the brightest. Customer

12:43

loyalty, very important. You don't want to poison

12:45

your customers. You want to take care of

12:47

them. Your supply chain, incredibly important. You've got

12:49

to get that material in order to bring

12:51

products to market. And

12:54

of course, the communities where you operate, which

12:56

that community could be not only

12:58

like local community, but

13:01

also the broader the

13:03

planetary community because dumping into the atmosphere

13:05

is going to come back to bite

13:07

you. And I

13:09

mean, we saw an example of this just just a, like

13:12

a couple weeks ago, Coke and Pepsi, they

13:14

were saving a penny on a

13:16

pound of sugar. And well,

13:19

that's Milton Friedman like, okay, great. But they

13:21

were using slavery in their supply chain and

13:23

an expose in the New York times came

13:25

out showing what's going on. And so now

13:28

their brand is associated with this

13:30

just horrific treatment of laborers. It's going

13:32

to cost them hundreds of millions of

13:34

dollars to rehabilitate their brand. And

13:37

so it's just, it's

13:39

shifting the time horizon from looking at

13:42

the next quarter to looking much

13:44

broader. And the

13:46

interesting thing is that most investors are actually

13:48

much more long term now that the vast

13:51

majority, by 80% of

13:53

most companies, investors are sovereign wealth

13:55

funds, pension funds, 401k

13:57

plans, but people have this

13:59

myth. mythology that You

14:02

should be making these decisions like

14:04

really structural decisions for

14:07

the companies based on essentially the 15%

14:09

of day traders and that

14:12

Idea has shifted. So again

14:14

mid 2019 business roundtable comes

14:16

out with it and

14:18

the world economic forum endorses it as the

14:22

fourth manifesto this manifesto the fourth

14:24

industrial age That

14:26

we're moving away from an extract of

14:28

economy Into a regenerative economy.

14:31

That's one that's based on justice and sustainability

14:34

So we're about five years into the implementation of

14:36

that now when that decision was

14:38

made That was a real

14:40

disruption and that is what the anti-esg

14:44

Crusade is about it's trying to

14:46

stop this transition. That's

14:48

already happening. The market forces are

14:50

already Decided and

14:52

they're trying to use the heavy hand

14:55

of big government There's really

14:57

literally a hundred and forty seven bills in 25 states

14:59

right now that

15:02

are trying to suppress freedom

15:05

to invest that are trying to tell us how

15:07

to think and The

15:09

ramifications of those I can tell you the

15:11

18 states that have adopted anti-esg legislation

15:15

all of their pension funds are underperforming

15:17

versus the rest of the country

15:21

and and significantly Because

15:23

they can't assess and address risk right

15:26

there Their treasurers are

15:28

unable to float municipal bonds because all the

15:30

banks have been banned So

15:32

Texas and 500 million dollars in

15:34

the first eight months after sp13

15:36

was put in place Just

15:39

to get their municipal bonds the Texas Chamber

15:41

of Commerce This is

15:43

exon and Chevron conical Phillips are part of

15:45

that. They reported that

15:47

Texas has wasted 668

15:50

million dollars and lost 3,000 jobs Directly

15:53

resulting from sp13 so

15:56

so these red states are harming

15:59

their firefights their teachers, their

16:01

police officers, their pension funds, their

16:03

harming all the citizens wasting all

16:06

the tax money in these states.

16:09

And yet it continues.

16:12

And that's why about 80% of these bills

16:14

get killed because they're so financially just

16:17

disastrous for the states. But

16:20

it's political theater.

16:22

And these

16:24

folks think that they're scoring points for

16:27

passing this legislation. What have

16:29

you seen in the wake of

16:31

the SEC finalizing its climate risk

16:33

disclosure guidelines and

16:36

ultimately leaving scope three out, which

16:38

I think a lot of people

16:40

characterized as them caving to pressure

16:43

and this kind of relentless

16:45

anti-ESG campaign. So now that that's been

16:47

chalked up as a win for the

16:49

anti-ESG folks, are you still seeing as

16:51

much of a push at the state

16:54

level to pass these laws

16:56

and or these sorts of lawsuits

16:58

against shareholders? Or do you think

17:00

they're satisfied now? Oh, no,

17:02

they're insatiable. They're just getting revved

17:04

up. In fact, Leonard Leo just

17:07

recently said, we need to flood

17:09

the zone with litigation. They're planning

17:11

hundreds of lawsuits against corporations. These

17:13

guys are anti-business, anti-freedom, anti-capitalist. That

17:16

was part of phase one. Now phase two

17:18

is going to be this massive litigation

17:20

and also Leonard Leo is calling for more

17:23

white men on boards. The number of white men on

17:25

boards dropped from 82% in 2020 to 77% in 2024.

17:31

And that 5% is lost. But only

17:33

how the supermajority is considered untenable.

17:36

When you say that he's talking about flooding the

17:38

zone with litigation, is it more of these kinds

17:41

of lawsuits like what Exxon filed against Arjuna?

17:44

No, it's more like filing

17:46

suits against corporations. For

17:48

instance, corporations that have diversity on

17:50

their board or diversity in their

17:52

workforce. So like a

17:55

lack of fiduciary responsibility kind

17:57

of thing where they're like not, supposedly

17:59

not. making enough money because they're too

18:01

worried about wokeness and that sort of argument?

18:04

Is that? Well, there's a kind of Ed

18:06

Blum, Edward Blum, who filed the Supreme Court,

18:08

who's now very familiar,

18:11

very familiar. Yeah.

18:14

Yeah. What they're asserting is

18:17

that if a company has a diversity,

18:20

equity and inclusion department, if they have a

18:22

diverse workforce, that they're going to be suing

18:24

them because they say that is not in,

18:27

that's not for short-term

18:29

profit maximization. Now,

18:32

as you so did a study, we looked

18:34

at the EEO one reports. That's the Equal

18:36

Employment Opportunity reports of, you look at

18:38

6,000 EEO one reports. So

18:41

1,600 companies over five years. These are the

18:43

reports that every company puts out to the

18:45

federal government about their diversity.

18:48

It's cut by each, you know, you have

18:50

management and you've got all the different groups

18:52

within the company and then you've got all

18:54

the protected classes. And what we found is

18:56

a statistically significant correlation showing that

18:59

greater diversity leads to financial outperformance

19:01

on eight key financial metrics, including

19:03

10 year stock return,

19:05

return on capital, return on investment,

19:07

basically every way that you would

19:10

judge finance.

19:13

So if a company

19:15

does not have diversity, they're actually in breach

19:17

of their fiduciary duty. Now

19:19

they're going to try to flip it. And

19:21

that's why they've been doing all these webinars about don't

19:24

believe data. There's actually a whole

19:26

thing around, it's called DEI lies

19:29

and that you should not believe, I mean,

19:31

they have a guy from the London School

19:33

of Economics. Literally he's, I've now

19:35

seen two of his webinars

19:38

saying, don't trust any data.

19:40

That there's, yeah, that

19:43

there's, that it's all biased. They don't

19:45

like basically don't trust math,

19:49

don't trust statistics.

19:53

Just don't trust data because there's

19:55

what they call confirmation bias. Now

19:58

I know my team that analyzed. these 1.3

20:00

million data points took over a

20:03

year. They're two PhDs, statisticians,

20:05

and I can tell you this data

20:07

is real. And if you

20:09

do not have a diverse management team, you're

20:12

going to be underperforming.

20:14

In fact, we actually found that

20:16

all white management teams underperform. So

20:19

if you want to increase the output of

20:21

your financial investments, look for

20:23

diverse management teams and overweight them, underweight

20:26

the all white management teams, and

20:28

you will outperform the benchmarks. We've

20:31

seen this now. It's clear. It's over

20:34

five years and statistically significant. I

20:37

know Ed Bloom is a fan

20:39

of these cases arguing that any

20:41

diversity approach

20:44

is violating the equal protection clause

20:46

of the 14th Amendment. Are they taking that kind

20:49

of an approach here as well, or

20:51

just saying that the

20:53

short term financial gains don't just take

20:55

any approach? They have no principles. They're

20:57

just trying to achieve an end. And

20:59

also, it's also, you know, what is

21:02

his name? Stephen Miller, who, right? Yeah, he just,

21:04

and he just got a grant of, I believe,

21:07

$27 million from one of these right

21:09

wing billionaires. I mean, this is

21:11

all funded by just a handful,

21:14

like three or four right wing

21:16

billionaires and oil barons. And they're

21:18

funding, Leonard Leo, they're funding

21:20

the Federal Society, American Enterprise,

21:23

Heritage Foundation, ALEC, all

21:25

these groups are all funded together. So

21:28

it's really a coordinated, concerted effort.

21:31

But getting back to the SEC,

21:33

because it's really important, important

21:35

point, you have to take the SEC climate

21:37

disclosure rule in context of why

21:39

was the SEC created in 1934? Well,

21:43

there was no financial information available. And

21:45

that's when the stock market crashed

21:47

and the Great Depression happened. And

21:50

they said, you know what, we

21:52

need standardized financial metrics, need every

21:54

company to report in the same

21:56

way we needed verified by a

21:58

third party. We need it

22:00

in a standardized format so we have comparability.

22:03

You can look at a financial report from

22:05

any two companies and send the same format.

22:08

Well, 90 years

22:11

later, 2024, they've come to

22:13

realize that these financial

22:15

statements are not the only information you need

22:17

to determine if a company is going to

22:19

be outperforming, if it's going to be successful,

22:21

and how to compare it to its peers.

22:24

There's other things like I

22:26

just mentioned, do they have diversity? That's

22:29

definitely a big one. What do

22:31

they do about their supply chains? How do they

22:33

treat their employees? All these things, companies

22:36

that treat their employees well have much better

22:38

retention. They spend less money on

22:40

training and on recruitment. They

22:43

will outperform. So investors

22:46

need to know these things. So what

22:48

the climate disclosure rule said is that

22:50

these material risk factors need

22:52

to be disclosed accurately. They need to be verified

22:55

by a third party in a standardized format. Now,

22:57

the first one of these factors was carbon

23:00

emissions. So overall,

23:04

the big takeaway here is, OK,

23:06

you've got the financial metrics and

23:08

now you've got all of the

23:11

material metrics. That's

23:13

a big, again, philosophical shift

23:16

that investors need more

23:18

information to do their fiduciary

23:21

duty and make good, informed decisions.

23:24

That's the real takeaway. The

23:27

fact that they don't use scope three means, well,

23:31

we only get to look at 20% of the emissions instead

23:34

of 100%. It would be much better to look at

23:36

100%. Also

23:39

they gave the companies the ability to

23:41

decide what is material, even though the

23:43

Supreme Court defines materiality as what

23:46

a shareholder needs to make a buy, hold,

23:48

or sell decision. So those

23:50

are the problematic parts of the new rule.

23:53

The fact that the rule exists that

23:55

we're now going to start to see

23:57

standardized disclosure

24:00

rules, critically important because

24:03

ultimately, right now, companies are just

24:05

disclosing information that could be completely

24:07

misleading. And, you know,

24:10

companies sustain analytics, MS, yeah, they scrape them up, and

24:13

they put them in a database and everybody thinks that

24:15

there's truth behind them when there isn't. But

24:18

here's the other good news. In Europe,

24:20

they've got CSRD and companies are

24:22

going to have to be disclosing

24:24

accurately for that. So any multinationals

24:27

already going to be starting to

24:29

disclose in the next 18 months,

24:31

that is pretty much going

24:33

to help investors to make the right

24:35

decisions. And also companies

24:38

that do disclose voluntarily, accurately, have

24:40

it verified in the standardized format

24:42

are going to get a lot

24:44

more investors because, well, if

24:46

you're an investor, you're going to say, Oh, well,

24:49

this company doesn't have anything to hide.

24:51

And we have an honest relationship

24:53

that there's trust between the company

24:55

and its shareholders. Now

24:57

remember, the

25:00

board reports to the shareholders, the

25:02

shareholders are the ultimate owners of these

25:05

companies. And that is

25:07

a critical thing that people don't realize. Or

25:10

maybe they realize it in the background, but that

25:13

that is the core of the

25:15

property rights associated with owning a

25:17

share of stock. So while

25:20

we're disappointed that they don't have scope three,

25:22

and we're very disappointed that they gave the

25:24

companies the right to decide what is material.

25:28

And also the fact that that's

25:30

not legal to do that, that

25:32

says it's up to shareholders to decide

25:34

that there is this

25:36

new structure that says disclose

25:40

accurately verified by a

25:42

third party and in a standardized format means,

25:44

Oh, now we've got audited financials,

25:46

and soon we will have audited sustainability

25:49

and materiality. And that

25:51

is a critical shift. Yeah,

25:54

I won't ask you to speak for the

25:56

the entire climate movement. But how is as

25:58

you so responding to to

26:00

this campaign, this onslaught.

26:03

We just keep doing what we do. We're

26:05

trying not to let it distract us. We

26:07

filed 89 shareholder resolutions this year,

26:10

which is down a little bit. We filed 111 last

26:12

year. We're

26:14

having, continue to having good relationships with

26:16

all the companies we engage. See,

26:19

here's the thing. We do a

26:22

lot of research and then we bring the research

26:24

to the companies and we sit down and have

26:26

these engagements. We say, hey, look, you scored a

26:28

seven on racial justice. Your direct competitors scored an

26:30

11. Here's a

26:33

better business plan, how you can outperform.

26:36

And most of the time, I mean, most

26:38

of the companies say, thank you. You

26:40

guys are like amazing. You're like McKinsey

26:43

for free. Let's go become better businesses.

26:45

And last year we had 210 engagements, 99

26:48

companies said, thank you. 111,

26:50

we filed resolutions to escalate it. And

26:52

once we did that, 56 said, you

26:54

know what? If you withdraw, we'll

26:57

agree to certain terms. We'll agree to start to implement

26:59

this stuff. So only about 30% go to a vote.

27:03

And when you go to a vote, those are non-binding. And then you sit

27:05

down and go, hey, 30% of your shareholders

27:07

think this is important. And the companies generally do.

27:10

They enlist their oil company and then they

27:12

just basically ignore their shareholders. So

27:15

we're just doing business as usual. The

27:17

companies are adopting better business

27:19

practices because they can see that it's better for

27:22

their businesses. Now the litigation

27:24

was getting back to Exxon against our

27:26

Juno. First

27:28

of all, the judge should just dismiss it

27:31

because Exxon already won. Exxon

27:33

said, what we want in this lawsuit is

27:35

for our Juno to withdraw their resolution and

27:37

for us to not put it on our

27:39

proxy statement. Okay, done, it wasn't on

27:41

their proxy statement. What

27:43

was on their proxy statement though is that they mentioned ASU so

27:45

13 times, referencing

27:48

that shareholders should not have

27:50

these rights. So

27:53

they are fundamentally attacking this

27:55

idea of property rights. Which

27:59

is... such a fundamental

28:01

thing for libertarians and for the conservatives.

28:03

It's amazing to me that

28:05

any of them would even sanction

28:08

this, but there they are doing it.

28:12

We're continuing business as usual.

28:14

Companies are quietly adopting the

28:16

good business practices that we're

28:18

suggesting. Some people call it green

28:20

hushing. It used to be that companies

28:22

would take a victory lap, say,

28:25

hey, you know what, we're adopting this

28:27

new DEI policy or this new climate

28:29

policy because they want investors to see

28:31

we're outperforming our competitors in

28:34

terms of reducing risk for all

28:36

stakeholders and opening up creating opportunity.

28:39

Now, they're much more quiet about it, but

28:43

they're still getting it done because

28:45

that's what good management does.

28:49

Here's the thing. Good

28:51

managers assess and

28:54

address risk. Good investors address

28:57

and assess risk. The

28:59

18 states where it's illegal to

29:01

assess and address risk, they

29:04

are suffering. It's literally

29:06

illegal. You think about it, why

29:11

are their pension funds underperforming? Well, they're

29:14

not allowed to assess and address risk. They're

29:17

not allowed to invest in companies that have

29:19

a climate transition plan, which are

29:21

generally the most profitable companies in the world. I

29:23

recently had a debate in

29:26

Arizona and the treasurer of the

29:28

Arizona, Kimberly Yee, was

29:30

debating anti-ESG. I was debating

29:33

pro-ESG. And I

29:35

asked her about SB 1195 in Arizona. Now,

29:38

if it goes into effect, literally the

29:42

state cannot do any business with any company

29:44

with a climate transition plan. And

29:46

I pointed out to her that half of

29:48

her portfolio was companies that have a climate

29:50

transition plan, and that she would

29:53

have to sell half of her portfolio and ask

29:55

her what's her plan. I also pointed

29:57

out that all the banks currently

30:00

funding their bonds. She won't be

30:02

able to do business with them. They'll all be banned. What's

30:05

she going to do? And how much more interest is she going

30:07

to be paying? Because you can't

30:09

get a lot of banks to bid on the

30:11

bonds. I also pointed out that all

30:13

of her bonds have

30:15

risk assessment for climate, for

30:17

water, for air, that she would have to

30:20

take out of those bonds,

30:22

issuances, which means very

30:25

few people, like reinsurers,

30:27

will not allow anyone

30:29

to bid and to fund these

30:31

bonds. And I said, what's your plan? And

30:34

she didn't have an answer. She said that,

30:37

oh, you know, it's about freedom and

30:39

ESG is taking away our freedom. And

30:42

I was like, no, actually, anti-ESG is saying

30:44

that we can't assess and address risk. You're

30:46

taking away our freedom to invest. And

30:50

so it was a very interesting just

30:52

to hear her, like she hadn't actually

30:54

done the homework and the Arizona

30:56

State Legislature. I said, you must have

30:58

prepared a report for the Arizona State

31:00

Legislature showing them all these financial risks.

31:03

Right. No, she had not, nor did she,

31:05

was she even aware that there were these

31:07

financial risks. So it's

31:10

political fear. And she's

31:12

super involved in the state financial

31:14

officers foundation too. Yeah,

31:17

she's a treasurer and she's very vocal.

31:19

And yeah. Yeah.

31:22

One of the things we haven't mentioned is

31:24

the fact that the House Judiciary

31:26

Committee is investigating as you so

31:28

in 13 other organizations for antitrust

31:30

activities. Right. I saw this. So I'll

31:32

tell you a little bit about that if you like.

31:35

Please. I know that I did a story

31:38

last year on just on the Texas

31:40

Public Policy Foundation and the stuff that

31:42

they were doing to try to push

31:45

that whole legal theory forward, that

31:47

ESG in general is antitrust in

31:50

some way, which every lawyer I

31:52

talked to said was bunk, but

31:54

you know, that hasn't stopped

31:56

them from moving forward with it. They should go

31:58

back to the House. Because the

32:01

house could frame it as. A

32:03

were writing new law and they're

32:05

saying willing to do discovery to

32:07

write this new law battle. We

32:09

got a letter last August. Same.

32:12

As You So is being investigated along with.

32:16

Your. Other groups including Black Rock,

32:18

Vanguard, State Street, Iss

32:20

Class Louis Calpers, The Lord's Pension

32:23

Fund in the Country. G

32:25

Fans which is five hundred of

32:27

the world's biggest banks, had forty

32:29

five countries and sandwiches the Net:

32:31

Zero Asset managers. Of

32:33

all told, the the fourteen

32:35

groups. That. Are being

32:37

investigated. Have a total assets under

32:40

management of one hundred and fifty

32:42

trillion dollars? Were talking about five

32:44

times Gdp of the United States

32:46

during that one and a half

32:48

times global gdp. So. Basically

32:50

the entire global economy is

32:52

being investigated by the House

32:54

Judiciary Committee's for Trump's activities

32:56

Saying. That. That.

32:59

Shareholders having a conversation. Is.

33:01

Collusion and that by setting companies

33:03

to reduce their carbon emissions were

33:06

infringing on the freedom of all

33:08

Americans. So. That's what they put

33:10

forward as their and legislative purpose and

33:12

so we're like questions about For so

33:14

were non profits, how could we be.

33:18

Doing. Anti Activity: We don't have a product

33:20

or a restaurant in any prices because we

33:22

don't have any prices. And so

33:24

we wrote a letter saying could

33:26

you clarify. They

33:28

sent us a subpoena such as:

33:30

turnover all your documents anything to

33:32

do with with Carbon or with

33:34

Net Zero Me all your documents

33:37

from Twenty sixteen. So

33:39

we gave them twelve thousand. Pages.

33:41

Of documents that were mostly

33:44

our or shareholder resolutions are

33:46

essential. Stations are reports. That.

33:49

We felt. Satisfied. Their.

33:51

Legislative pretty purpose that were pertinent

33:53

to their legislative purpose. They

33:56

said none enough. We need to hear from you

33:58

We come on. And we were. We want

34:01

to have an interview.

34:04

So we sent our chief counsel and she went in

34:06

and had eight and a half hours of being interviewed

34:08

and answered all the questions. They

34:10

said, not enough. So I said, okay,

34:13

I'll come in voluntarily at the end of March.

34:16

And so within a couple of days, they

34:19

sent us a letter saying we're going to hold you

34:21

in contempt of Congress. So our

34:23

lawyers said, well, if you're going to hold them in

34:25

contempt, then we can't answer questions

34:28

around document production because that's what they were

34:30

saying. That was the contempt that we hadn't

34:32

given them enough documents. So

34:34

we can't answer questions around that because

34:36

that would be self-incrimination. So

34:39

they immediately sent a subpoena that said, show up

34:41

on the same day you've already said you're coming.

34:46

So I showed up on the day that I said I was coming and

34:49

they proceeded to ask me five and a

34:52

half hours of questions. Most of it

34:54

was really kind of explaining to them how capitalism

34:56

worked. And they didn't quite understand that the

34:59

boards of directors report to their shareholders that

35:02

when three new

35:05

directors were added to the Exxon board or

35:07

were placed on the Exxon board in 2021,

35:10

it was because Exxon had been losing money.

35:12

Their stock had been dropping for 10 years.

35:15

They'd been thrown off the Dow. And

35:17

what's a shareholder to do? Like, of

35:19

course you're going to replace an incompetent board,

35:22

a board that had no capital discipline. Like,

35:24

of course you would do that. And that's just,

35:27

that's our right. They did not like that at

35:29

all. So it was mostly talking about that kind

35:31

of thing where I just kept having to explain

35:34

how the power structure of capitalism worked.

35:38

And so now they keep telling us that they're going to

35:40

be holding us contempt. We keep saying

35:42

we've given you all the pertinent documents.

35:45

We've cooperated completely with the

35:47

committee and we'll see what happens. Now

35:49

it's in their court. What's

35:51

interesting is just how they are

35:54

essentially trying to intimidate

35:56

shareholders from essentially doing what

35:59

is our... None They

36:01

are legal rights for our fiduciary

36:03

obligation to trade that the company

36:05

so we own to. Perform.

36:07

Better to have less risk. That's

36:10

really interesting. I know we

36:12

talked about some of the state laws. can

36:14

you talk a little bit about that? the

36:16

haggerty bill and what's sad is aiming to

36:18

do and where I thought at the moment.

36:21

He. Introduced it instead the Larry

36:23

February First Twenty Twenty Four. And

36:26

there's a companion bill in

36:29

the house it's called the

36:31

rest Fit for Businesses Act

36:33

in the rest and sense

36:36

for rejecting extremists, shareholder proposals

36:38

that inhibit import enterprise. Re.

36:41

Will be good as his has been doing

36:43

this for thirty two years and we work

36:46

with Groups wage or the Safe Space groups

36:48

that have been doing it for sixty years.

36:50

And. Every. Shareholder Resolution that

36:53

we file is about helping a

36:55

company to reduce material risk for

36:57

all stakeholders and to create opportunities.

36:59

It's helping them assess and address

37:02

risk they might not see and.

37:05

The. Fact that he see this as some sort

37:07

of a threat when. Seventy.

37:09

Percent of the company's we engage say

37:12

thank you thank you for caring enough

37:14

to bring us good data and good

37:16

ideas. And. Thirty percent go

37:18

to a vote and then almost all

37:20

of those. Then after the vote say

37:22

thank you for bringing this good ideas.

37:24

You're making this a better company. Shows

37:26

just how. Out of

37:28

touch they are and how much this

37:30

is just too little fear. For. Their

37:33

trying to do here turn to take away

37:35

to shareholders property rights. To this

37:37

is that participatory democracy. This.

37:39

About capitalism and this is

37:41

our freedom and. It. Seems

37:43

like Mr. Haggerty does not like

37:46

those things and doesn't. Quite.

37:48

Understand. that

37:50

that is how the system works and works

37:52

quite well i got a set these are

37:54

not and resolutions emmy we have ninety six

37:57

percent votes in the company doesn't have to

37:59

do it Now, in

38:01

those cases, and the company says, no, we're not going to

38:03

do anything. Well, then the shareholders

38:05

go, you're not listening to us, and therefore

38:08

we're going to vote against this

38:10

board. We don't have confidence in this board. We're

38:12

going to vote and no confidence vote. And

38:15

oftentimes that leads to running new board

38:18

candidates, often much

38:20

more competent. I mean, interesting thing

38:22

about the Engine 1 directors at

38:24

Exxon, there was no one

38:26

on the Exxon board in

38:28

2021 that had any energy

38:31

experience. None of them. Okay,

38:33

two of the four Engine 1

38:35

directors had experience working with an

38:37

energy company. And there's a lot

38:39

of outside influence, but since

38:42

the day, since May of 2021, Exxon stock has

38:45

done pretty much nothing but go up

38:47

after a 10 year decline. So

38:49

anyone who says these directors harm the company, well,

38:52

first of all, 91% of the shareholders voted

38:55

for some of them and

38:57

all been reelected every year

38:59

after. And the company has done much

39:02

better financially since then. They're

39:04

just not looking at the data, but again,

39:07

they don't necessarily like data either. And

39:11

what's interesting is, you know, I talked about in

39:13

2019, there was this big decision on a

39:15

new philosophy. Well, right after

39:17

that, the Catholic Church, they

39:19

came up and said, you

39:21

know what, this Papal law

39:23

that gave basically all the explorerships

39:26

would put a priest in it. And

39:29

it was called the Doctrine of Discovery. You get to

39:31

a new land and you claim it

39:33

for the church. And then you

39:35

could do anything. The people there

39:37

could be subjugated, could be enslaved,

39:39

et cetera. Just

39:42

kind of quietly, the Catholic

39:44

Church said, you know, by the way, that law is no

39:46

longer in force. I saw that, it

39:48

got no attention in the press, but that

39:51

is a major philosophical shift. That is like

39:53

literally they just announced on, it was March

39:55

23rd, 2020 that colonialism is

39:59

no longer. It's

40:01

no longer legal. No

40:05

one noticed it, but we're

40:07

seeing this level of philosophical

40:10

shift. Now we've got a long way to go

40:12

to get to a glide path

40:14

into this new paradigm, and

40:17

there's a lot of reparations that have

40:19

to happen to rebalance. But

40:22

the folks who have been in power

40:24

for all of this time, they're not

40:26

liking it. Here's the

40:28

thing, when you have all this power and you

40:30

see it potentially going away, like the 82% of

40:33

white males on boards to 77, that little

40:35

bit of change is seen

40:38

as outrageous and it's

40:40

a massive attack on the

40:42

structure that we know and

40:45

love and have for centuries.

40:49

Whereas the people who haven't had any power are seeing

40:51

like, oh, I'm having a little bit more power there.

40:54

The pushback is very intense, but

40:57

you know what? You cannot stop market forces.

41:00

You can try. It's

41:02

a ripple that's become a wave and is soon

41:04

to be a tsunami. They can

41:06

stand out there and hold their hand up

41:08

against the tsunami, but they will just be

41:11

swept away by it. That

41:13

is what Leonard Leo knows.

41:16

That is what they are desperately trying to

41:19

slow down. They know they can't stop it, but they're

41:21

trying to slow it down as much as possible. It

41:24

has to do with the way

41:26

the oil companies control all the

41:29

governments and that everyone is

41:31

beholden to them. Guess

41:35

what? The internal combustion engine is going

41:37

obsolete. Interesting data point this

41:39

week. I think it was just

41:41

today or yesterday, the Wall Street Journal called

41:44

oil and gas a sun-setting industry.

41:46

Well, it is. It is the Kodak. I

41:49

often say shareholders went to

41:51

Kodak and said, hey, we got to think

41:53

about our business model.

41:57

We got to think about digital photography. They said,

41:59

no, we make films. And we

42:01

went to Blockbuster and we said, you know, this internet

42:03

thing, it's not just a fad, you should really look

42:05

at Netflix and they go, no, we

42:07

have brick and mortar and we have these

42:09

VHS. Same

42:12

thing with Exxon. It's been, again,

42:14

27 resolutions over 10 years saying, let's think

42:17

of ourselves as an energy company, not an

42:19

oil company. I mean, we've come

42:21

up with really innovative resolutions

42:23

that we're trying to reward, give

42:25

bonuses to executives that actually started

42:28

to transition the company. We had

42:30

this idea that rather than base

42:33

bonuses for executives on

42:36

what's called barrel replacement, you

42:39

sell a barrel, you got to go discover a new barrel, but

42:42

rather on BTUs, on British Thermal

42:44

Units or energy. And

42:47

each barrel of oil or each unit

42:50

of gas, all the

42:52

fossil fuels have BTU

42:55

equivalents. So you just do

42:57

the math and you just go, oh, and

42:59

you report to the SEC both

43:02

your barrel replacement and your energy

43:05

replacement. And then you can see,

43:07

oh, look, they replace 70% of

43:09

their barrels, but 30% is, but they have

43:13

100% energy replacement. That's

43:15

a company that's transitioning. I want to overweight them

43:17

in my portfolio. And we

43:20

actually talked, it was interesting, we had these

43:22

meetings with Chevron because we filed this resolution.

43:25

I remember sitting in this meeting and we explained it to

43:27

them and these executives, high

43:29

level people said, like CFO level

43:31

people said, you know, we're going to make

43:33

a lot of money. Like I'm going

43:35

to get really rich doing this. And we're like, yeah, exactly.

43:39

You guys should get rich transitioning this

43:41

company. They're like, okay, let's

43:44

maybe let's go together to the SEC and talk about

43:46

this. They're like, that's cool. We'll do that. Anyway,

43:49

then they invited Exxon along. And

43:51

somehow, by the end of

43:54

that week, the whole thing was

43:56

put the kibosh on it. Interesting. But

43:59

again, we're sure. shareholders trying to figure out

44:01

how do we make this company viable in

44:03

the long term? Because we don't think that

44:05

they are long term,

44:07

their viability is seriously

44:10

compromised in the long term. So

44:12

yeah, is there any

44:15

kind of either legislative

44:17

or judicial approach

44:19

to batting back some of this stuff?

44:21

Is suing them back or trying to

44:23

propose policy that would tamp down on

44:25

some of this anti-ESG fervor or people

44:28

just kind of trying to like ignore

44:30

it and get on with their day?

44:33

Well, people aren't ignoring it, what you're seeing

44:35

at the state level, like in South Dakota,

44:38

for instance, their anti-ESG bill lost, I think

44:40

it was 90 to 3. That's

44:43

because the South Dakota bankers got in and said, this

44:45

is going to crush our state. This is going

44:47

to just harm us. So you're seeing

44:49

at the state level, they're realizing the economic

44:51

harm, which is why about 80% of these

44:54

bills don't make it. And

44:56

then the ones that do, some of them are

44:58

specifically illegal. And it's

45:01

been very hard to find plaintiffs willing to stand up

45:03

to them. So

45:06

right now, it's a work

45:08

in process to actually push back in terms

45:10

of suing Edward Blum. Yeah,

45:12

is he actually the one that's bringing some of

45:14

these cases, the Leonard Leod ones? Is

45:17

it Blum and his crew?

45:20

Well, he brought the case against Fearless

45:22

Fund. Okay. So that's

45:24

the fund that gives grants to

45:27

black women entrepreneurs and also

45:30

as a VC. So

45:32

he's doing that. And then there's Miller who's doing his

45:34

stuff at Target, where he'll basically

45:37

create a hate

45:40

mob against LGBTQ. And

45:43

then he'll sue the company for having a hate mob.

45:46

So there's those troublemakers. And again, Miller

45:48

just got $27 million to run more

45:51

litigation from, I think it's

45:53

the Bradley Fund, which is important. The Bradley

45:55

Foundation. Okay, this is wild because I did

45:58

a two year project. looking at

46:01

all the anti-Iqwa cases, the

46:04

Anti-Indian Child Welfare Act cases,

46:07

that were being argued by Gibson Dunn,

46:11

which is why I got interested in it

46:13

because I was like, wait a minute, that's

46:15

Chevron's law firm. Why are they involved in

46:17

this child welfare case? The more we looked

46:20

at it, it was a

46:22

whole thing that had been started

46:24

by the Bradley Foundation who have

46:26

also funded Bloom for years too. Those

46:28

guys don't get as much attention as they

46:30

deserve. No, they

46:33

don't. But I mean, this is the, I call them the

46:35

oil barons and right-wing billionaires. Yeah. It's

46:38

a pretty small group, but they have.

46:40

Yeah. Very small group. This is the

46:43

regressive elites, if you will, and they just

46:45

want to go back to, look what's going

46:47

on in Arizona, 1864. That

46:49

was a pretty good year. That's seriously

46:51

what they want. I feel like Leonard

46:54

Leo has basically said that at various

46:56

points, pre-Lachner

46:58

and industrial revolution

47:01

stays. I don't know. Certainly

47:03

back to the 1970s and Milton Friedman. But

47:10

here's the thing, the University of Chicago, I

47:13

think it's a Friedman Becker School, which by

47:15

the way, was renamed because the

47:17

University of Chicago professors did not want to have it

47:19

just be the Milton Friedman School, because

47:22

they disagree with his theories. They're

47:25

teaching stakeholder capitalism. Why?

47:27

Because it works, because your companies

47:30

outperform, because you take care of

47:32

your employees, when you take care

47:34

of your customers, the

47:38

communities where you operate and your supply chain, you are

47:40

going to be a better company that's going to have

47:43

long-term sustainable growth that is going to

47:45

be good for all your shareholders. So

47:47

there's just no question about that. I

47:51

often cite an example of, if

47:54

you've got a company and it's dumping toxic

47:56

waste into the local river from your factory.

47:59

Yeah. Okay, you don't have to pay for water treatment

48:01

and you have saved a little bit of money there.

48:04

That looks good the first month, but then your

48:06

own employees are drinking the water and they're sick

48:08

and they're not showing up at work. And then

48:11

you get sued and your

48:13

brand is now tainted. Okay,

48:15

you've got such a deep economic problem signal

48:17

to last you for years that

48:19

the trade-off is

48:21

not worth it. Again, short-term is

48:24

long-term. And people

48:26

are just thinking much longer term now because

48:29

the investors in their companies are much longer

48:31

term. When somebody pats a law that says

48:33

it's illegal to look at risk, then you

48:35

really want to look at the risk and

48:38

say, why are they hiding? And

48:41

what they're hiding is that the oil companies are no

48:43

longer viable. That is what they're hiding

48:45

and it's in plain sight and everyone

48:47

knows it. But frankly, the

48:49

Saudis keep it pumped up and people

48:51

don't realize this. There's

48:54

a hundred million people with $10

48:56

trillion of assets in 401k plans

48:58

that are invested in the entire

49:00

extractive economy. If you're invested

49:02

in BlackRock, you own Saudi Aramco. Saudi

49:05

Aramco is on their board.

49:07

People don't know this. Now, not

49:09

only are you invested in rainforest

49:14

destruction and fossil fuels and

49:16

private prisons, but you've

49:18

handed off your right to vote to Vanguard that

49:21

votes with management 98% of the time. So,

49:24

we've all handed over all

49:26

of our power. Our power is in our money.

49:28

And we've said, okay, Vanguard, you can

49:31

do whatever you want to do. And

49:33

all you have to do is, you know, it's like it's your

49:35

money. The person who earns the

49:38

money should decide how it is invested and they

49:40

can use it to capitalize a future that they

49:42

want to live in. The person

49:44

who earns the money should have the right

49:46

to vote. They have the right to vote,

49:49

but they should actually use it to express

49:51

their values to the companies they own. It's

49:53

so basic and we're getting to the point

49:55

now. There's a new thing called pass-through

49:57

voting. As you saw this 401k plan, plan.

50:00

We are literally piloting starting in

50:02

a few weeks. We're

50:04

all going to every employee as you so we'll

50:06

be voting every one of our shares. So we

50:08

are on a Target date fund. That's 2000

50:11

companies or so we're voting everything on everyone.

50:13

And we're doing it with one click. We

50:15

call it as you vote. And

50:17

we also offer this for free anyone who

50:20

owns shares individually. Like

50:22

if you just have if you're getting your

50:24

proxy statements, your ballots into your inbox,

50:28

only one click you can sign up for

50:30

as you vote and all those ballots going

50:32

forward will be voted in an ESG aligned

50:34

way. According to our policy, that

50:36

means you're voting against 80%

50:38

of the CEO pay packages, you're voting against 70%

50:40

of the board, you're voting for all the good

50:43

shareholder resolutions and you're voting against all

50:46

the anti ESG resolutions, which by the

50:48

way, another that's another piece of the

50:50

Leonard Leo puzzle is they're

50:52

filing these resolutions, they're calling them racial justice

50:54

resolutions. But what they say is white men

50:56

are discriminated against. Yes,

50:58

it's a reverse racism thing. They've been trying

51:00

to make this argument since the 90s. The good

51:02

news is they wouldn't be pushing back as hard

51:05

if we were making progress.

51:07

And we are making good

51:09

solid progress. And we have

51:11

the market forces at our back. And

51:14

they are trying to stop

51:16

the unstoppable. For

51:23

this week, we'll be back with

51:25

a few more episodes in our real free speech

51:28

threat series over the next month or

51:30

so. This episode was engineered by

51:32

Peter Duff. Our music is

51:34

bird in the hand by For Now. You

51:37

can find a transcript of this interview

51:39

and lots of other related articles and

51:42

podcast episodes on our website

51:44

at drilled.media. And you

51:46

can follow us across social media at

51:48

we are drilled or I'm at Amy

51:50

Westervelt. Thanks for listening and we'll see

51:53

you next time.