On August 24, the Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts, Glenn Hegar, announced a list of prohibited financial companies including banks and asset managers that he claims boycott energy companies. Texas state entities, including public pension funds, must now divest from them in accordance with the bill that governor Greg Abbot signed into law in June 2021.
The comptroller’s office is attempting to tie these companies, their anti-oil and gas rhetoric and misguided activism around proxy voting to the elevated energy costs Texans face. It points to what it calls an increasingly hostile federal regulatory environment hampering new domestic energy exploration and production.
“My greatest concern is the false narrative that has been created by the environmental crusaders in Washington DC and Wall Street that our economy can completely transition away from fossil fuels, when, in fact, they will be part of our everyday life into the foreseeable future,” Hegar stated.
My greatest concern is the false narrative that has been created by the environmental crusaders in Washington DC and Wall Street
Listed companies include BlackRock, Jupiter Fund Management, Schroders and a number of large European banks such as BNP Paribas and Credit Suisse.
