Exclusive—Nebraska Treasurer John Murante: ESG Policies a ‘Real Attack’ on Farmers, Ranchers

WASHINGTON, District of Columbia — Nebraska state Treasurer John Murante, a former national chair of the State Financial Officers Foundation (SFOF), told Breitbart News that pushing the environmental, social, and governance (ESG) policy movement “is a real attack on farmers and ranchers in Nebraska.”

“We say all the time that we believe that ESG will be the CRT [critical race theory] of 2023. Once people find out what’s going on, they’re absolutely appalled,” Murante explained to Breitbart News about the leftist policy movement during an exclusive interview at the State Financial Officers Foundation (SFOF) conference last month, where state treasurers from across the country launched their strategy against ESG policies.

Looking towards 2023, the Nebraska state treasurer was referencing what he hopes many people, especially Republicans, want to happen to the leftist ESG movement. In 2020, CRT was a little-known movement compared to what it is today. One year later, during Virginia’s 2021 gubernatorial race, the outrage towards CRT  helped Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R) win the election. Since then, in 2022, the outage has continued across the country towards the academic and legal framework that denotes that systemic racism is part of American society.

ESG policies are a form of leftist activism in financial investing that has become the latest vector to influence the way Wall Street financial firms and corporations continue to take social and political positions that do not relate to their business, such as stances associated with climate change, as well as the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) agenda. Wall Street firms, such as BlackRock and others, sell ESG as a way to invest according to specific criteria that the political left pushes on voters and consumers.

“I think from the perspective of Nebraska, there’s really two points that Nebraskans, when they find out [about ESGs], are really outraged,” he added.

Murante, trying to describe the effects of the ESG policy movement on Nebraska, said, “First is the ESG component on the attacks on agriculture — that’s hitting our state a lot — when you drive up the cost of natural gas in the price of fertilizer, it drives up the costs of doing farming and ranching across the state of Nebraska… When you drive up the cost of food production, you drive up the costs at the grocery store. That hurts everybody, but it hurts the poor the most. And the environmental regulations that are trying to be imposed through our own tax dollars, our own pension dollars that we see that have been imposed in Europe, in Sri Lanka, that causes food scarcity, food price increases, and a destabilizing effect on governments, as well. We will not allow our tax dollars to be used for that purpose. So when people find out that there is a real attack on farmers and ranchers in Nebraska and across the country, they are outraged.”

Additionally, referring to asset managers who are hypocritical, the Nebraska state treasurer said, “But then equally when they find that the same asset managers that are making these demands in the United States on farmers and ranchers and American energy and trying to shut down the coal industry, which would bankrupt states and drive up the cost of electricity, that go over to China and hold Chinese companies to a different standard, a lower standard, because it’s cheaper, because it’s cheaper, and they want Chinese money more than they care about climate change. In our view, that’s absolutely appalling. When China is the greatest geopolitical threat, we have a serious chance of being at war with the Chinese.”

“Our asset managers in the United States are using our public pension funds and our retirement dollars to finance Chinese energy while bankrupting American energy. There’s no excuse for it,” Murante explained.

“Even if you don’t have any corn farmers in your state or you don’t know any corn farmers, even if you don’t  know any coal miners in West Virginia, the attack still impacts every single American, he stated. “And if the American people wanted those public policies, they would elect members to Congress who would pass legislation who would enact those policies. But thus far, the radical left has not been able to elect enough individuals to enact the Green New Deal, so it’s been rejected. And it’s been in the last few years that the patience of the radical left has run out. And they’ve stopped relying on the democratic process. And now they’re trying to use the power and might of public finances to enforce that which they can’t get elected at the ballot box.”

Over this past, and specifically the last few months, more Republicans across the United States have started to take aim at the ESG policy movement. Multiple Republican-led states across the United States have begun pulling money they have invested out of BlackRock, the world’s largest asset manager, due to its leftist activism in financial investing.

Additionally, last month, multiple state treasurers attended SFOF’s conference to present strategies on how to combat the ESG policy movement. With one of the main focuses on educating Americans on the dangers of ESG policies, the group launched a website and a video explainer.

Multiple state treasurers at the conference also explained to Breitbart News that ESG policies hurt each state differently but collectively hurt all American taxpayers financially. Hence, they came together in a joint effort to combat the left-wing policies masquerading as economics.

Jacob Bliss is a reporter for Breitbart News. Write to him at jbliss@breitbart.com or follow him on Twitter @JacobMBliss.