House Republicans take anti-ESG campaign to CalPERS

investmentnews.com:

The California Public Employees’ Retirement System has turned over thousands of pages of documents in recent months to Congress as the country’s largest pension fund faces Republican scrutiny for its investment practices intended to combat climate change.

The $464 billion fund has been handing over the trove of information to the House Judiciary Committee led by Ohio Republican Jim Jordan since the committee sent letters in December to CalPERS and Ceres, an environmental nonprofit that CalPERS works with on climate issues, seeking public and private documents dating back to 2016. The requests come as GOP officials nationwide step up attacks on ESG investing.

CalPERS is now reviewing additional documents to see if they are relevant to the committee’s request and in hopes of avoiding a subpoena, spokesperson John Myers said. In June, Jordan hit Ceres with a subpoena following voluntary disclosures that he deemed “inadequate.”

The documents provided by CalPERS include slide decks and reports detailing the fund’s sustainable investment strategies. The pension fund also handed over private email conversations between Anne Simpson, a former managing investment director at CalPERS, and staff at Ceres, according to batch of documents reviewed by Bloomberg. 

The emails discuss a successful activist investor bid to oust Exxon Inc. board members in 2021 in favor of more climate-friendly leaders. CalPERS, which backed the rival directors, planned meetings with Ceres staff in February and April to coordinate messaging ahead of the board meeting in 2021, according to Simpson’s emails.

Jordan and the five other House Republicans who signed the letter accused CalPERS of potentially acting as a “cartel” by coordinating with Ceres and