Excerpt from a piece originally published in Pluribus News – Read the full article here.
A new coalition of business groups backing free-market policies launches Monday in conservative states where lawmakers have pushed restrictions on environmental, social and governance investing strategies.
Americans for Free Markets, which pitches itself as a defender of the nation’s financial system and capitalism, said it would use its resources to back pro-business, pro-market legislation — and push back against bills it sees as stifling investment decisions.
“We have seen some Republican states start to institute some laws that try to dictate what a business can or can’t do,” said John Wittman, the group’s executive director and a former top aide to Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R). “Any time a government intervenes in the marketplace, from the left or the right, the market loses.”
The new organization is a coalition of state-level groups including the Arizona Chamber of Commerce, the Texas Association of Business and the Oklahoma Rural Association, and national business groups like the National Taxpayers Union, the Hispanic Leadership Fund and the Parkview Institute.
Its creation comes at a moment when conservative legislatures are targeting environmental, social and governance investing practices — known as ESG — in state investment decisions. At least half the states have some form of rules in place restricting the use of ESG factors, according to Ropes & Gray, a law firm that tracks such laws.
Some of those laws restrict a state’s authority to interact with financial institutions that decline to do business with certain industries, like the fossil fuel industry or the firearm industry. Lawmakers in Kentucky, Oklahoma, Texas and West Virginia have implemented so-called “anti-boycott” laws in the last several years, giving a state treasurer or comptroller the authority to maintain lists of businesses barred from receiving state contracts or investments.
In an interview previewing the group’s launch, Wittman said his group would push to allow the free market to make those decisions in the future. He declined to identify specific bills AFFM would back or oppose, though he said it would be active in coming legislative sessions.
“This organization is not pro-ESG, it’s not anti-ESG,” Wittman said. “We just believe a business should do what it wants.”
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