Republican lawmakers demand info from more than 130 companies about ESG initiative

House GOP lawmakers on the Judiciary Committee demanded information Tuesday from more than 130 companies about their involvement with an investor-led climate action initiative.

The ESG Climate Action 100+ was described as a “woke cartel” by Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan of Ohio and subcommittee on the Administrative State, Regulatory Reform, and Antitrust Chairman Thomas Massie of Kentucky.

The committee said in a statement it “continues to examine whether existing civil and criminal penalties and current antitrust law enforcement efforts are sufficient to deter anticompetitive collusion to promote ESG-related goals in the investment industry.”

Companies, retirement systems, and government pension programs with membership in Climate Action 100+ “must answer for their involvement in prioritizing woke investments over their own fiduciary duties,” the committee said.

Last June, the panel released an interim staff report titled “Climate Control: Exposing the Decarbonization Collusion in Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) Investing.”

The report details how ESG investor-led initiatives like Climate Action 100+ consist of left-wing activists and major financial institutions that coordinate to push far-left environmental, social, and governance goals on American companies.

The Washington Times reached out to Climate Action 100+ for comment but did not immediately hear back.

Climate Action 100+ describes itself on its website as “an investor-led initiative to ensure the world’s largest corporate greenhouse gas emitters take appropriate action on climate change in order to mitigate financial risk and to maximize the long-term value of assets.”

The committee sent letters to companies and environmental organizations in California, Connecticut, the District of Columbia, Hawaii, Illinois, Kansas, Kentucky, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Missouri, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Texas, Vermont, Virginia, Washington and Wisconsin.