©2025 League of Conservation Voters
Issues
The Senate considered Representative Andy Barr’s (R-KY) H.J. Res. 30, a Congressional Review Act (CRA) resolution of disapproval, which would repeal the Department of Labor’s (DOL) rule to protect people’s retirement savings from all types of financial risk, including financial risks due to climate change. The CRA is an extreme and blunt tool that is being used by anti-environmental members of Congress who want to permanently strip away protections for our environment, communities, wildlife, and natural heritage. For decades, the DOL set forth rules that required retirement plan managers to prudently consider all relevant factors while remaining neutral on investment types. The Trump administration deviated from this longstanding approach by issuing rules that discouraged consideration of so-called environmental, social, and governance (ESG) factors – even when these factors affect investment risk and return. The Biden-Harris administration rule returns to neutrality, in which plan managers can consider all relevant factors to assess investment risk, does not mandate, prohibit, encourage, or discourage any particular type of investment, and is clear that retirement plan managers must base their decisions on financial risk-return factors. Overturning this rule with a CRA resolution would return to the Trump-era standard that disregards the financial risks of dirty energy investments – standards that are being implemented in extremist Republican-led states across the country at a significant financial loss for their pension funds. On March 1, the Senate approved H.J. Res. 30 by a vote of 50-46 (Senate roll call vote 35). The House approved H.J. Res. 30 on February 28; however, it was vetoed by the president on March 20, and on March 23, the House failed to override the president’s veto.
©2025 League of Conservation Voters