High Country Times

WASHINGTON – Today, as part of House Republicans’ efforts to address what they term "wokeism," Education and the Workforce Committee Chairwoman Virginia Foxx (R-NC) spoke on the House Floor in support of H.R. 5339, the Protecting Americans’ Investments from Woke Policies Act. The bill aims to protect Americans’ savings by ensuring financial advisors focus on maximizing returns in retirement plans.

Chairwoman Foxx's remarks included:

“I rise today in full support of the Republican fight against the woke progressive agenda. The Committee on Education and the Workforce is proud to lead debate on the Protecting Americans’ Investments from Woke Policies Act, or H.R. 5339, a bill that would confront and dispatch one of the most nefarious and hidden forms of wokeness.

“Wokeness comes in all shapes and sizes. It’s a problem when it’s pushed at your local public school. It’s an existential threat to the country when it’s pushed by the institutions that police how we think, what we say, and where our money goes.

“Wokeness destroys everything it touches, including the value-neutral institutions that America used to take for granted. First, wokeness conquered academia. Then, it conquered the media. The final frontier of the woke mind virus is banks and capitalism itself.

“You may say, what—banks are woke? They’re driven by things like profit motive and markets. Well, think again. Under the guise of a practice known as Environmental, Social and Governance investing, or ESG for short, banks are responsible for woke social engineering on a scale that history’s authoritarians could only dream of.

“In essence, a big bank or asset manager will take your hard-earned pension or 401(k) and invest it in radical progressive causes. These ESG funds exclude businesses deemed insufficiently woke.

“What may disqualify a company from receiving woke capital includes but is not limited to: too many white straight men in the boardroom; too much profit in the oil and gas industry; or too many politically incorrect takes by your CEO on X (formerly known as Twitter).

“That the S&P 500’s ESG Index delisted a green company like Tesla only proves that ESG is nothing but a woke power grab. Concerns about the environment are secondary to enforcing bland progressive conformity.

“What’s more, ESG factors guide about one-fourth of all assets under management or $30 trillion; yet these funds underperform when compared to their conventional peers.

“Take this from Financial Times: ‘Over the past 12 months, global sustainable equity funds made an 11 percent return compared with 21 percent for conventional stock funds,’ according to a May report from JPMorgan.”