Folwell: Overriding Cooper’s veto of anti-ESG bill was a good move
State treasurer Dale Folwell says legislators took a bold step toward protecting state retirees’ pensions when they overrode recent vetoes by Governor Doofus:
The best interests of North Carolina taxpayers and retirees will be served through legislative passage of House Bill 750, which requires investment decisions to be made on the basis of the highest financial returns, not social and political ‘wacktivism,’ State Treasurer Dale R. Folwell, CPA, said after the House and Senate voted to override Gov. Roy Cooper’s veto of the measure.
“This is a good day in North Carolina. We are grateful to those lawmakers who understand the need to shield the state pension plan against the movement to weaponize public retirement systems to achieve extreme agendas,” Treasurer Folwell said. The act is aimed at barring Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) factors in hiring and other personnel matters, or when awarding state contracts.
Most important, the treasurer said, is that those who spent their working years to teach, protect and serve can remain confident that investment decisions will conform to the fiduciary duty of loyalty and care. That means seeking the highest yields to strengthen and sustain their pension plan for this and future generations.
“We never have had ESG policies at the Department of State Treasurer. We don’t need a law to tell us what is right and wrong,” Treasurer Folwell said. “But now we do have a law that very clearly defines the guardrails.”
Some activists want ideological ESG factors such as climate change and abortion to be considered when determining how and where public money will be invested. Major asset management firms such as BlackRock have used the market power they gained from their investors through proxy votes to aggressively push for ESG investments that may not be in the best interests of those same clients.
Treasurer Folwell has taken a firm stand in opposition to those practices. He signed an agreement that enables the North Carolina Retirement Systems to vote its own shares of about $14 billion in BlackRock investments rather than allow the investment giant to cast proxy votes for those shares. He also has called on BlackRock CEO Larry Fink to resign or be removed from the top spot of the money management company. […]
He needs to take as much of our funds as possible out of these nefarious money managers. Blackrock, State Street and Vanguard are the biggest, I am sure there are others. I did that in my own 401k, there are limited choices outside those three, but I am willing to accept the risk of not using them.
These comments are just one of many reasons why Dale Folwell should be our next Governor. There is NO ONE else presently in state government or outside it who understands the workings of the state’s business or has demonstrated his fidelity to the job assigned/elected to from managing a broken unemployment system which was billions in debt to the feds then to now protecting our pension funds for those who earned them. I think it is a no-brained that every current and past state employee MUST help elect Dale Folwell Governor. In 2024. Someone recently asked “why isn’t he campaigning like Robinson and Walker? The reply is that he is, as State Treasurer, working full time in Raleigh at the job we elected him to do. I would ask no more of him and urge everyone to support Dale for Governor.
Agree whole heartedly with Browny and Carl. Dale is a principled man who takes his fidelity to his oath of office extremely seriously. I look forward to electing a Governor who represents the people of this State. I trust Dale implicitly and know a lot of people who feel the same way. Here’s hoping that he is victorious on Election Day.
Should the voters of NC actually be smart and elect Dale, he can tackle the other messes with Human Services and DOT. I guess it’s up to me to try and educate them.