Fiduciary Future | July 15, 2024

How oil barons and right-wing billionaires are manipulating the free market to extend fossil fuels

Andrew Behar
Guest Author

Andrew Behar

The House Judiciary Committee has delivered a clear message to the free market: shut up about climate change or pay the price. The Committee’s Chairman sent threatening letters and filed subpoenas to intimidate 14 mainstream investor organizations with a combined $105 trillion in assets under management, including As You Sow, the nonprofit that I lead. 

The “antitrust” allegations are the latest smoke screen in a dark money crusade led by a handful of oil barons and right-wing billionaires using elected officials to manipulate the free market and ban information that investors need to make smart decisions. 

Professional investors understand the future of fossil fuel is bleak, especially for companies unwilling to transition to an inevitable clean energy future. Softening demand for oil, gas, and coal has meant billions in missed gains for retirees. In fact, a new report by researchers at the University of Waterloo, in partnership with As You Sow, found more than 2 million employees from a dozen major tech companies could have earned $5.1 billion in additional returns in their 401(k)s had their companies eliminated fossil fuels from their retirement plan holdings 10 years ago. 

Rather than listen to the market and invest in clean innovation, desperate fossil fuel majors have sued shareholders and funded trade associations, propaganda campaigns and politicians working to stunt the energy transition.

Oil barons can’t stop the clean energy transition, but they can force state employees to continue investing in dirty energy. It requires greasing the wheels of state treasurers, legislators, attorneys general, a right-wing media echo chamber, and the Congressional House Judiciary Committee — all pushing the same agenda to ban material information and deny growing market losses from climate change. 

I know because our nonprofit has been on the front lines of this cynically orchestrated campaign that looks a lot like collusion. Ironic, considering that’s what the Committee accused As You Sow and the 13 other organizations of doing.

Despite staggering financial losses to taxpayers and pensioners, over 300 state bills have been introduced in an attempt to insulate the oil industry from investors and corporations looking to reduce their climate risk. 

Texas, Indiana, Oklahoma, Kentucky, Florida, West Virginia, and Missouri squandered billions of dollars in unnecessary losses and legal fees. 

While compromised state legislators said the laws were meant to protect constituents, the staggering losses clearly showed the only beneficiaries were fossil fuel companies — even as they raked in record profits. To date: all 18 states that passed anti-business laws had underperforming pension funds, meaning less money for the retirements of hardworking police officers, teachers, and firefighters.

Billionaire agenda

Right-wing billionaires piggybacked on efforts to insulate fossil fuels and added their own social agendas by attacking sustainable investing. The self-dealing mega-donor Leonard Leo used a $1.6 billion war chest provided by American business owner and political donor Barre Seid to declare war on diversity and sustainable investing. 

Apparently, Leo was outraged that white-male board directors at Russell 1000 public companies dropped from 82% in 2020 to a mere 77% in 2024, and called for “getting control of c-suites and boardrooms across the country.”

When I personally called him out for funding attacks on our work, right-wing media rushed to defend Leo, quoting an anonymous source that my assertion was “ridiculous and laughable.” That’s right, who ever heard of billionaires and oil companies influencing government?

Leo’s own public statements make the obvious connection: “The ESG movement is polluting our culture and assaulting the dignity and worth of people. Our enterprise stands with a growing group of Americans who are fighting to crush leftist dominance in this arena.” 

Leo directly influences state legislatures by funding the State Financial Officers Foundations (SFOF), Republican Attorney Generals Association (RAGA), and the American Legislative Counsel (ALEC). ALEC drafts model anti-ESG bills, SFOF members ram those bills through red state legislatures, and RAGA provides the legal threats to silence opposition. 

At the federal level, Leo funds a shadow network behind the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025. Project 2025 promotes an industry-approved policy agenda for every agency throughout the federal government based on fealty rather than competence. Known funders include The 85 Fund, a donor-advised nonprofit group that funnels money from unnamed wealthy financiers; and the Concord Fund, a public-facing lobbying firm. 

Both are part of Leo’s shadow network dedicated to “end American democracy and create a Christian nation.”

Leonard Leo is also chairman of the Teneo Network, which ProPublica described as a “private and confidential” conservative group that promises to “crush liberal dominance and influence all aspects of American politics and culture.” Teneo’s cofounders include two attorneys affiliated with the Alliance Defending Freedom and the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, where Leo sits on the board. 

Leo and the CEO of First Liberty Institute — described as the ”flip side of the ACLU” — are members of the influential Council for National Policy. Justice Clarence Thomas’ wife, Ginni, is also a CNP member along with Carrie Severino, who clerked for Thomas, runs Concord Fund.

Oil money

Expect this anti-democratic and anti-American activity to continue as a billionaire presidential candidate recently offered oil industry executives a brazen quid-pro-quo. “You should raise $1 billion to return me to the White House,” he said. In exchange, he promised to scrap policies designed to encourage innovation and prepare the country for a low-carbon future. 

The meeting emboldened oil executives to take the extraordinary step of drafting ready-to-sign Executive Orders for a possible new administration to push natural gas exports, cut drilling costs, and expand offshore oil leases.

Governments and nonprofits play an important role in protecting investors. But when they are used to limit choice and restrict the freedom to invest, we must fight back to protect the free markets, and, indeed, the freedom of all Americans. 

Responsible citizens and shareholders will not be silenced and will continue to work with corporations to address social and environmental challenges – whatever the special interests of oil barons and right-wing billionaires.