From the Daily Caller News Foundation 

By Jason Cohen

Several asset managers leveraged two major Texas university systems’ endowment funds to advance anti-fossil fuel shareholder proposals in 2022 and 2023, according to a report from the conservative watchdog group American Accountability Foundation (AAF).

BlackRock-owned Aperio Group, Cantillon, former Vice President Al Gore-chaired Generation Investment Management, GQG Partners and JP Morgan Asset Management collectively manage approximately $4 billion for The University of Texas/Texas A&M Investment Management Company (UTIMCO) as of July, which handles the university systems’ endowments. Despite the company’s policy against it and Texas’ status as the leading crude oil and natural gas-producing state, UTIMCO’s asset managers backed over 150 shareholder resolutions under the environmental, social and governance(ESG) umbrella, including proposals that could undermine the oil and gas industry, according to documents AAF obtained through a public records request and shared exclusively with the Daily Caller News Foundation.

“Once again, woke ESG ideology has infected a public institution and hijacked its money for their own purposes. This is an outrageous betrayal of the public’s trust,” AAF president Thomas Jones told the DCNF. “[Republican Texas] Gov. Greg Abbott must take immediate action to end this nonsense. He must shake up the leadership at UT/A&M that let this happen and use his influence with UTIMCO to ensure that it never happens again.”

UTIMCO told the DCNF that the ESG and diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI)-related votes violate “a long-standing policy that prohibits using the endowments’ economic power to advance social or political agendas” and that a review found they consist of 0.3% out of around 45,000 proxy votes in recent years. The endowment manager added that it has since modified its guidelines after finding the violative votes and will impose them on all of its third-party investment managers before future proxy votes, and revoking voting authority for those that cannot follow them.

🚨EXCLUSIVE🚨Swing State’s Pension Funds Used By Wall Street Titans To Push ‘Racial Equity’, Climate Agenda, Report Finds from @jasonJournoDC https://t.co/LXx3y4WZPV

— Daily Caller (@DailyCaller) January 25, 2024

The company’s asset managers voted in favor of a total of 159 shareholder proposals between them that include “racial and gender pay gap reports, efforts to defund conservative candidates and pro-business trade associations, radical climate policy, targeting of gun purchasers, and proabortion initiatives,” according to the watchdog.

UTIMCO oversees the largest public endowment fund in the U.S., managing over $76 billion as of Aug. 31.

“UTIMCO’s mission is to ‘generate superior long-term investment returns to support The University of Texas and Texas A&M University Systems,’ yet these votes endorse political agendas that run contrary to the Systems’ best interests,” American Energy Institute CEO and former Republican Texas state Rep. Jason Isaac told the DCNF. “By supporting proposals that harm American energy producers, UTIMCO’s fund managers are violating their fiduciary responsibility.”

Texas leads the nation in crude oil and natural gas production and in 2023 was responsible for 43% of crude oil output, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. However, AAF found many examples of UTIMCO’s asset managers voting in favor of proposals aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) emissions and other actions to mitigate so-called climate change, which the watchdog alleges comes at the expense of producing value for investors.

For instance, at ExxonMobil’s May 2023 yearly shareholder meeting, Aperio Group voted in support of a proposal to recalculate its GHG emissions to account for the assets it has sold. The resolution asserted that “the economic risks associated with climate change exist in the real world rather than on company balance sheets” and argues that the investments ExxonMobil sells may lower emissions on paper but that they fail to actually help achieve the goal of keeping global temperatures from rising by 1.5 degrees Celsius — which is an objective of the 2015 Paris Climate Agreement — potentially exposing the company and its stakeholders to what it calls “climate risk.”

Some of Aperio Group’s clients have access to customize their individual proxy voting policy, according to BlackRock. BlackRock itself voted against this ExxonMobil proposal on behalf of most of its clients.

AAF’s “report on UTIMCO’s investment practices should alarm every Texan who values our state’s proud oil and gas industry,” Texas Railroad Commissioner Wayne Christian told the DCNF. “It’s outrageous to see Texas university investments being used to support radical ESG agendas, decarbonization, and dangerous policies like Net Zero and the Paris Accord, which threaten our energy independence and economy. We must put an end to the woke political agendas that undermine the very foundation of Texas’ success and ensure our investments align with the values of hard-working Texans.”

Moreover, at defense contractor Raytheon Technologies’ yearly shareholder meeting in May 2023, J.P. Morgan Asset Management backed a proposal urging the company to publish a report on efforts to reduce GHG emissions in alignment with the Paris Climate Agreement.

“Raytheon Technologies creates significant carbon emissions from its value chain and is exposed to numerous climate-related risks,” it states. “Failing to respond to this changing environment may make Raytheon less competitive and have a negative effect on its cost of capital and shareholders’ financial returns.”

Isaac told the DCNF that UTIMCO’s “managers are discriminating against fossil fuel” companies through ESG investing based on the definition of “boycott” in Texas’ Senate Bill 13, which Abbot signed in 2021 and the former representative said he helped create.

The bill defines boycotting energy companies as refusing to engage or ending business with a company involved in fossil fuels “without an ordinary business purpose.” It also specifies actions aimed “to penalize, inflict economic harm on, or limit commercial relations with a company because the company” does business related to fossil fuels and fails to “pledge to meet environmental standards beyond applicable federal and state law.”

Isaac added that the asset managers “should be held accountable and placed on Texas’ list of “financial companies that boycott energy companies,” which mandates Texas public investment entities subject to SB 13 “avoid contracting with, and divest from, these companies unless they can demonstrate this would conflict with their fiduciary duties.”

The S&P Global Clean Energy Index, which includes companies that engage in energy production from renewable sources, has fallen about 7% so far in 2024, while the S&P 500 Energy Index, which features many oil and gas companies, has risen close to 3% in that same time.

Louisianans’ pension funds were similarly leveraged to push climate-related proposals within publicly traded companies, the DCNF reported in April, based on another public records request by AAF.

“UTIMCO’s asset managers’ apparent promotion of leftist objectives, including ESG, is extremely troubling and contrary to Texas law banning boycotts and discrimination against fossil fuels. The legislature must exercise oversight and hold UTIMCO accountable,” Republican Texas state Rep. Brian Harrison told the DCNF. “Governmental bodies, including their proxies, should not pursue objectives that harm the Texas economy and go against our values.”

Cantillon, GQG Partners, Texas A&M and Abbot’s office did not respond to the DCNF’s requests for comment. Aperio Group, Generation Investment Management, JP Morgan Asset Management and the University of Texas declined to comment.

From the Daily Caller News Foundation 

By Jake Smith

Russian President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday lowered the threshold for the use of nuclear weapons against the West, marking yet another escalation in an already drawn-out war that has cost hundreds of thousands of lives and shown no signs of ending.

Putin announced during a meeting with the Russian Security Council on Wednesday that the country’s nuclear doctrine was being expanded to include the possible use of such weapons against other nations with nuclear capabilities, should they support a non-nuclear state — such as Ukraine — in a heavy missile attack against Russia. The warning comes amid President Joe Biden’s announcement on Thursday of an additional $8 billion in military aid to Ukraine and reports that Western nations are considering allowing Kyiv to use their long-range weapons to strike deep inside Russian territory.

Ben Friedman, policy director at Defense Priorities, told the Daily Caller News Foundation that Putin is likely “bluffing,” but it is not worth the risk for the U.S. to allow Ukraine to make such a move.

“I think the odds of Russia using a nuclear weapon in response to one of these hypothetical strikes are pretty low. But how much do you want to gamble on that? How much do you want to bet that Putin is bluffing? I’d say not very much,” Friedman told the DCNF. “You want to be very cautious. The U.S. has no security interest in taking those sorts of risks in a conflict that could escalate to a larger war, even a nuclear exchange in a worst-case scenario.”

Putin said during the security meeting that the nuclear doctrine was being updated because of an “emergence of new sources of military threats and risks for Russia and our allies,” according to multiple reports.

“The updated version of the document proposes that aggression against Russia by any non-nuclear-weapon state, but with the participation or support of a nuclear-weapon state, should be considered as a joint attack on the Russian Federation,” Putin told the council on Wednesday, noting that the conditions to launch nuclear weapons would be based on “reliable information about a massive launch of aerospace attack means and their crossing of our state border,” according to the Post.

“We reserve the right to use nuclear weapons in the event of aggression against Russia and Belarus,” Putin said.

Officials from the White House and State Department told the DCNF they were “not surprised” By Putin’s warning.

“Russia has been signaling its intent to update its nuclear doctrine for several weeks,” a State Department spokesperson told the DCNF. “However, Putin’s public comments highlight Russia’s attempts to use irresponsible nuclear rhetoric and employ coercive nuclear signaling as it has done against Ukraine for more than two years.”

Moscow’s threat of using nuclear weapons has been frequently raised as the U.S. and Europe continue to throw their support behind Ukraine’s defense against Russia’s invasion, which began in 2022 and has shown no signs of stopping. Putin has issued such warnings specifically over the West’s indirect involvement in the war, which has largely come in the form of military aid to Ukraine.

The U.S. alone has allocated over $55 billion worth of military assistance to Ukraine since 2022, while European partners have committed roughly $46 billion in the same time frame.

But certain rules and regulations have been imposed on the military aid to Ukraine, particularly around how weapons can be used to strike Russia. For much of the war, Western nations restricted Ukraine from using the weapons to strike inside Russia, although that ban was recently lifted to allow Ukrainian forces to launch attacks against Russia’s border region.

Ukraine wants the West to make further allowances on weapons use, however. Kyiv argues that it should be allowed to use U.S. and European-provided long-range missiles to hit targets deep inside of Russian territory, a move which the U.S. has been wary of due to escalatory risks with Moscow.

But now a number of nations are signaling that they will allow Ukraine to use long-range systems to strike Russia, including Britain and France, though they want the U.S. to give the green light first — and some European partners have become frustrated with the delay for approval.

“It would be really good to stop the delays. And I think that the restrictions on the use of weapons should be lifted,” Denmark Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen told Bloomberg on Monday.

Though the U.S. and West have bolstered Ukraine’s military efforts over the last two years through extensive funding measures, it has done little to change the course of the conflict. Ukraine is suffering from a worsening manpower shortage as its troops are killed in combat along the Eastern line of the war, and has been forced to retreat from regions along that front as Russian forces advance.

Russia has made small territorial gains along the Eastern front, but it has come at the cost of hundreds of thousands of soldiers’ lives and hundreds of billions of dollars in spending. Some Russian forces are currently staging a counterattack against Ukrainian forces that broke through Russia’s border in August and staged an incursion in Kursk, according to Reuters.

Over one million Russians and Ukrainians have thus far been killed or injured since the war began in 2022, according to a confidential Ukrainian estimate reviewed by The Wall Street Journal.

The Biden administration, with only months left in power, is starting to run out of options to help Ukraine and may turn to allowing Kyiv to use long-range weapons as a possible measure, so long as they are provided by Europe and not the U.S. President Joe Biden and his team have faced criticisms for seemingly failing to work an endgame strategy in the war or outline the road to a peace deal.

“Biden could certainly change direction,” Friedman told the DCNF, by potentially either supporting an even stronger Ukrainian defense operation or putting pressure on Kyiv and Moscow to negotiate a peace deal. “But I don’t think he will, just because of the way this White House seems very set in their approach.”