Senate Republicans are teaming up to curb retirement plan sponsors’ ability to consider environmental, social and governance factors in selecting investments, as a counter to the Biden administration’s efforts to expand worker and retiree access to such investing.
Sen. Mike Braun of Indiana this week unveiled a bill that would specify the fiduciary duty of plan administrators is to select and maintain investments based solely on monetary factors under 1974 legislation known as the Employee Retirement Income Security Act, a law that governs a broad range of retirement and health benefit plans.
If plan sponsors want to consider non-pecuniary factors when choosing between funds, they could do so only if they are unable to distinguish them “on the basis of pecuniary factors alone,” according to the bill text. Even if an ESG investment choice is able to meet that standard, plan advisers would also have to make lengthy justifications to include it.
The bill essentially would reinstate a Trump administration Labor Department rule that took away retirement plan sponsors’ ability to direct investments into ESG options.
The bill is also similar to recent legislation from Sen. Steve Daines of Montana, who joined Braun’s bill as a co-sponsor, as did Sens. Richard M. Burr of North Carolina, Tommy Tuberville of Alabama, Cynthia Lummis of Wyoming, Roger Marshall of Kansas, Roger Wicker of Mississippi and James M. Inhofe of Oklahoma.
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