Texas announces decision to retract a substantial $8.5B investment from BlackRock

Pretty sizable news. I didn’t see it mentioned yesterday amongst the SCOTUS ruling. Apologies if this is a repost.

Anyway … the financial move marks a significant stance against BlackRock’s environmental and social governance (ESG) policies—which Texas views as detrimental to the state’s vital energy sector.

Common sense vs insanity. Score one for the good guys.


The Hill

quote:

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Texas’s public schools are pulling out billions of dollars that had been invested with asset manager BlackRock — a firm the state accused of boycotting fossil fuels.

On Tuesday, Aaron Kinsey (R), head of the Texas State Board of Education, announced that his agency was pulling $8.5 billion out of management by BlackRock.

The company’s “dominant and persistent leadership” in the environmental, social and governance (ESG) movement “immeasurably damages our state’s oil & gas economy and the very companies that generate revenues” for Texas’s Permanent School Fund (PSF), which supports the state’s public schools, Kinsey said in a statement.

The fossil fuel industry contributed about $26 billion in state and local taxes in 2023 — about $1.8 billion of which went into the fund.

That means fossil fuel money accounts for about 80 percent of the $2.2 billion annual budget of K-12 schools. (The total amount in the fund is about $53 billion, which is invested with thir-party asset managers like BlackRock.)

The anti-ESG campaign in Texas and elsewhere has hinged on the idea that asset managers that don’t invest in fossil fuels are risking their customers’ investments for the sake of politics — a case that Kinsey echoed.

“The PSF will not stand idle as our financial future is attacked by Wall Street,” he wrote. “This bold action helps ensure our PSF remains in fact permanent and will continue to support bright futures and opportunities for generations of Texas students.”

In its response, BlackRock accused Texas of also putting politics over profit.

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