©2025 League of Conservation Voters
Issues
Representative Rick Allen (R-GA) sponsored H.R. 5339, the so-called Protecting Americans’ Investments from Woke Policies Act, which included the Roll back ESG To Increase Retirement Earnings (RETIRE) Act and would repeal the Department of Labor’s (DOL) rule to protect peoples’ retirement savings from all types of financial risk, including those due to climate change. 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 long-standing approach, and the Biden-Harris administration restored neutrality. Plan managers can once again consider all relevant factors to assess investment risk, and base their decisions on these financial risk-return factors. Overturning this rule 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 September 18, the House approved H.R. 5339 by a vote of 217-206 (House roll call vote 427). The Senate took no action on this legislation.
©2025 League of Conservation Voters