CNS Keeps Riding On Right-Wing Anti-ESG Bandwagon

CNSNews.com continued its ideologically mandated right-wing bandwagon campaign against investments that take environmental, social and governmental issues into consideration with a Jan. 4 article by Craig Bannister:

As 2022 drew to a close, all 10 of the largest Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) funds left investors suffering double-digit percentage losses in the value of their portfolios, an analysis by Bloomberg reveals.

What’s more, the report finds that eight of the ten largest ESG funds, measured by assets, performed worse than the S&P 500:

But actual analysts point out that this is a “very narrow interpretation of the data” and that ESG investments have done well on a long-term basis:

The problem with this argument – ESG products are bad investments and take returns off the table for hardworking pension funds investors – is that it relies on a very narrow interpretation of the data. Looking at both a short- and long-term horizon, the figures are much better. In the third quarter (the latest figures available), global ESG median return was -6.09% compared with a broader global equity peer group return of -6.87%. Nearly two in three funds – a full 65% outperformed the index.

[…]

More important is looking at longer term results. On a one-year basis, 63% of global ESG products underperformed. This reflects the overall underperformance of growth products, as 73% of these investments underperformed the index. But looking at a three-year time horizon is different. Seventy-four percent of ESG products outperformed the benchmark, with a median return of 5.9%.

Neertheless, Bannister quoted a right-wing activist insisting that these numbers “dispelled the myth that ESG is a worthy investment” and demanding that it be “challenged and defeated politically.”

Bannister continued to crank out biased anti-ESG articles throughout January and February, many of which were reprinted at its Media Research Center parent’s NewsBusters blog (so much for any purported wall between news and opinion at the MRC):

• Ky. Treasurer: 11 Banks to Lose State’s Business if They Continue ESG Boycott of Fossil Fuel Investments
• Stop Acting Like ‘Activist Forcing Companies to Comply’ with ESG Goals, 21 State AGs Tell 2 Proxy Advisory Firms
• Florida Formalizes Policies to Ensure Investments Focus on Profit, Not ESG Politics
• SEC Commissioner Warns Creating ESG Rating Standards Could Have Orwellian Consequences
• Heritage Action, Indiana AG Urge Passage of Bill to Stop State Investments Based on ESG Instead of Maximum Profit
• MT AG Demands State’s Money Back from AG Group Investing in ESG Through Companies Like BlackRock
• Fmr. Carl’s Jr. CEO: Asset Managers Are Using Americans’ Own Money Against Them to Impose ESG on Them
• DeSantis: How ESG Circumvents the American People to Impose Harmful, Unpopular Ideology
• $900+ Billion Investment Firm Begins Bribing Employees to Invest Clients’ Money in ESG
• Trump: ‘The Entire ESG Scheme Is Designed to Funnel Your Retirement Money to the Maniacs on the Radical Left’

When the Biden administration established a new rule that allows retirement plans to more easily consider ESG factors, Bannister had a preordained freakout over it in a Jan. 30 post:

A new Biden Administration rule took effect Monday, allowing retirement plan administrators (fiduciaries) to base investments on Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) goals, rather than only on the maximum financial benefit of their clients.

The U.S. Department of Labor released the final rule under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) to allow plan fiduciaries to consider climate change and other environmental, social, and governance (ESG) factors when they make investment decisions and when they exercise shareholder rights, including voting on shareholder resolutions and board nominations.

The Biden rule eliminates a 2020 Trump Administration rule requirement that fiduciaries consider only the monetary benefit (“pecuniary only”) to their clients when choosing investments.

In other words, it’s not a new rule but simply reverses a Trump policy and returns things to the previous status quo. Later that day, Bannister served up some related PR for the fossil fuel industry (which CNS loves to do):

An alliance of two hundred companies engaged in oil and natural gas exploration and production has joined with the attorneys general of 25 states in a lawsuit seeking to stop a new Biden Administration rule allowing retirement account managers to invest in Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) efforts, even if they’re not the most profitable for their clients.

The complaint, filed in Texas, seeks a preliminary injunction and permanent relief, in the form of a declaration that the ESG rule violates both the Administrative Procedure Act (APA) and Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) and is arbitrary and capricious.

“This rule is an affront to every American concerned about their retirement account. The fact that the Biden Administration is now opting to risk the financial security of working-class Americans to advance a woke political agenda is insulting and illegal,” Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, who is co-leading the lawsuit, said in a press release announcingthe complaint:

But if the policy simply reverts to previous norms, it makes no sense to call it “arbitrary and capricious.”

Bannister touted his employer’s activism on the issue in a Feb. 1 article:

Every Republican senator and Democrat Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) are introducing a resolution opposing President Joe Biden’s new ESG investment rule because it politicizes and threatens the value of Americans’ 401Ks.

Led by Sen. Mike Braun (R-IN), the senators condemn the rule, because it allows fiduciaries to consider ideological factors – specifically, environmental, social and governance (ESG) goals – when investing, rather than just rate of return.

[…]

The Media Research Center (MRC), along with more than a hundred other conservative organizations, have endorsed the resolution in the following letter to Congress:

Bannister failed, however, to disclose that the MRC operates CNS — meaning that there’s a conflict of interest here. So much for CNS being a responsible “news” organization.