Indiana holding woke corporate culture accountable with Attorney General Todd Rokita’s lawsuit against BlackRock, State Street, and Vanguard

Thursday, December 5, 2024 at 6:00 PM

Attorney General Todd Rokita is taking further action to stop woke corporatists and their left-leaning allies in government from driving up energy costs for hardworking Hoosiers.

“We’re taking on very powerful forces arrayed against the interests of everyday working Hoosiers,” Attorney General Rokita said. “Coal has been the backbone of Indiana’s economic success for decades. The demand for electricity has gone up and these ESG titans are reaping the benefits of these skyrocketed prices; by keeping their thumb on production.”

ESG investing — the acronym stands for the investing principle that prioritizes environmental issues, social issues, and certain corporate governance ideas — elevating goals like mitigating climate change, enforcing hiring quotas, and achieving social justice benchmarks above the fiduciary duty to maximize returns for investors. 

Over the past four years, America’s coal producers have not been responding to the price signals of the free market, but have been listening to BlackRock, Vanguard, and State Street instead as alleged in the complaint. The three asset managers acquired substantial stockholdings over several years in every significant publicly held coal producer in the United States, thereby allegedly gaining the power to control the policies of coal production in the United States.

Indiana along with 10 other fossil fuel producing states filed suit to hold BlackRock accountable for their alleged aggressive attempts to manipulate policy by manipulating and controlling the markets through threats and votes at stakeholder meetings and in board rooms. As unelected non-policy makers, the complaint alleges they are using their market power to force socialist and Leftist policies, like climate change, to better fill their pockets.