Senator Chuck Schumer writes in the Wall Street Journal that ESG is (1) common sense and (2) market-based, as opposed to the Republican efforts to stop it.

ESG opponents are trying to turn it into a dirty acronym, deploying attacks they have long used for elements of a so-called woke agenda. They call ESG wokeness. They call it a cult. They call it an incursion into free markets. We’ve heard it all before. I say ESG is just common sense.Republicans conveniently ignore something very important: America’s most successful asset managers and financial institutions have used ESG factors to minimize risk and maximize their clients’ returns. In fact, according to McKinsey, more than 90% of S&P 500 companies publish ESG reports today.

This isn’t about ideological preference. Investors and asset managers increasingly recognize that maximizing returns requires looking at the full range of risks to any investment—including the financial risks presented by increasingly volatile natural disasters, aging populations and other threats that the public doesn’t normally associate with financial modeling.

Nothing in the Labor Department rule imposes a mandate. It simply states that if fiduciaries wish to consider ESG factors—and if their methods are shown to be prudent—they are free to do so. Nothing more, nothing less.

The present rule gives investment managers an option. The Republican rule, on the other hand, ties investors’ hands.

Republicans Ought to Be All for ESG – WSJ