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A new ad from the Democratic challenger in the southeast Iowa congressional race claims sitting Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks wants to outlaw all abortions nationwide. No exceptions for rape, incest, or to save a womans life.

The U.S. Supreme Court this summer overturning Roe v. Wade, long-held protections for abortion until fetal viability, spurred public debate over restrictions on abortion and is seen as a key issue by Democrats ahead of the midterm elections.

Congresswoman Miller-Meeks speaks during a luncheon, Wednesday, June 29, 2022, at the Dahl Old Car Home in Davenport.

Miller-Meeks said in a September debate and has said in interviews that she supports exceptions for rape, incest, and a womans life. She endorsed a bill from U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., that would prohibit abortion after 15 weeks with those exceptions.

Christina Bohannans ad is referring to Miller-Meeks co-sponsoring of the Life at Conception Act, a House proposal with 163 Republican co-sponsors that would guarantee a constitutional right to life of each born and pre-born human person from the moment of fertilization without explicit exceptions.

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In an interview last week with a Quad-City Times reporter, Miller-Meeks said when asked about the Act: I think that you can recognize medically that life begins at conception, and still have exceptions, as I've already noted. So again, my long-held position in multiple public interviews has been I'm pro-life with exceptions for life of the mother, rape, and incest.

Congressional candidate Christina Bohannan, a Democrat from Iowa City, will be in Davenport on Tuesday for a roundtable with health care officials about abortion.

Bohannan continues in the ad: I never imagined my daughter would grow up having fewer rights than I had. Im fighting to protect our right to choose. When it comes to our bodies, women should be in charge, not Washington politicians.

Iowa Sen. Kevin Kinney releases ad celebrating "Noah's law"

Iowa Sen. Kevin Kinney, a Democrat from Oxford, released his second ad of the election cycle, highlighting his work on a law honoring a Tiffin teen who drowned in the Coralville Reservoir in 2020.

When Noah Herring drowned in 2020, the people with him did not call for help, according to reports at the time, and did not tell the Johnson County Sheriffs office where his body was.

In the ad, Noahs cousin, Amber Herring, sitting with his mother Lisa Herring, tells the story of getting the law passed.

We reached out to Senator Kevin Kinney, who helped us pass a law so that what our family went through; another family does not have to go through, she says.

The ad was paid for by the Iowa Democratic Party.

The law, signed by Gov. Kim Reynolds in 2021, makes it a crime to not call emergency responders when someone appears to be in imminent danger and increases penalties for not telling authorities the location of a corpse. Three juveniles and one adult were charged with lesser crimes related to Herrings death, but failing to alert authorities was not a crime at the time.

In a statement, Kinney said the law was a bipartisan effort and the legislation was written with input from Herrings family.

I then worked across the aisle to get Noahs Law passed unanimously, he said. Im honored to have the support of Noahs family, and I will continue to work to protect crime victims and their families in the State Senate.

Grassley announces farmers coalition

U.S. Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, speaks during a lunch for Republican volunteers during the "Hearts and Minds Day" door-knocking event, Saturday, Sept. 24, 2022, in Iowa City, Iowa. (Joseph Cress/Iowa City Press-Citizen via AP)

Republican incumbent U.S. Sen. Chuck Grassley's campaign announced the county chairs of the Farmers for Grassley Coalition, a group of farmers who support Grassleys reelection.

The campaign previously announced the leadership of the group, which includes Iowa Secretary of Agriculture Mike Naig, former presidents of the Iowa Farm Bureau and Iowa Corn Growers Association, and former Iowa Secretary of Agriculture Bill Northey.

The list includes farmers from all of Iowas 99 counties. Grassley also announced a veterans coalition from the 99 counties in September.

Congress will rewrite the Farm Bill next year and we need a farmer to represent our interests in the U.S. Senate, Larry Madson, Shelby County farm chair, said in a news release from the campaign. ...Chuck is the strong voice we need to strengthen and sustain the family farm for generations to come. Iowa agriculture needs Chuck fighting for us more than ever.

Former Vice President Mike Pence, center, speaks to the media during a visit Friday, Aug. 19, 2022, to the Iowa State Fair in Des Moines.

Former Vice President Mike Pence speaks to the media Friday, Aug. 19, 2022, during a visit to the Iowa State Fair in Des Moines.

Former Vice President Mike Pence walks with Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, during a visit to the Iowa State Fair on Friday, Aug. 19, 2022, in Des Moines.

Former Vice President Mike Pence, center, greets fairgoers on Friday, Aug. 19, 2022, during a visit to the Iowa State Fair in Des Moines.

Former Vice President Mike Pence, center, and Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, greet fairgoers on Friday, Aug. 19, 2022, during a visit to the Iowa State Fair in Des Moines.

Former Vice President Mike Pence walks through the Varied Industries Building on Friday, Aug. 19, 2022, during a visit to the Iowa State Fair in Des Moines.

Former Vice President Mike Pence walks with Rep. Randy Feenstra, R-Iowa, during a visit to the Iowa State Fair on Friday, Aug. 19, 2022, in Des Moines.

Former Vice President Mike Pence talks with Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, during a visit to the Iowa State Fair on Friday, Aug. 19, 2022, in Des Moines.

Former Vice President Mike Pence checks his watch as he walks down the concourse Friday, Aug. 19, 2022, during a visit to the Iowa State Fair in Des Moines.

Former Vice President Mike Pence greets a fairgoer on Friday, Aug. 19, 2022, during a visit to the Iowa State Fair in Des Moines.

Former Vice President Mike Pence, right, walks past a corn dog stand Friday, Aug. 19, 2022, during a visit to the Iowa State Fair in Des Moines.

Former Vice President Mike Pence greets fairgoers on Friday, Aug. 19, 2022, during a visit to the Iowa State Fair in Des Moines.

Former Vice President Mike Pence points to a pork picnic in a cup in the Iowa Pork Producers tent on Friday, Aug. 19, 2022, during a visit to the Iowa State Fair in Des Moines.

Former Vice President Mike Pence eats a pork picnic in a cup Friday, Aug. 19, 2022, in the Iowa Pork Producers tent during a visit to the Iowa State Fair in Des Moines.

Former Vice President Mike Pence reacts after eating a pork picnic in a cup Friday, Aug. 19, 2022, in the Iowa Pork Producers tent during a visit to the Iowa State Fair in Des Moines.

Former Vice President Mike Pence reacts to supporters during a stop Friday, Aug. 19, 2022, at the Iowa Pork Producers tent during a visit to the Iowa State Fair in Des Moines.

Former Vice President Mike Pence talks with Juan Pina, right, on Friday, Aug. 19, 2022, during a visit to the Iowa State Fair in Des Moines.

Former Vice President Mike Pence talks with a fairgoer on Friday, Aug. 19, 2022, during a visit to the Iowa State Fair in Des Moines.

Former Vice President Mike Pence speaks to the media Friday during a visit to the Iowa State Fair in Des Moines.

Former Vice President Mike Pence speaks to reporters on Friday, Aug. 19, 2022, during a visit to the Iowa State Fair in Des Moines.

Former Vice President Mike Pence greets fairgoers on Friday during a visit to the Iowa State Fair.

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Campaign Almanac: Miller-Meeks clears the air on abortion stance - Quad-City Times

For years, Arizona has been one of former President Donald Trump's favorite spots to campaign. Here's a rundown of his visits.

July 11, 2015: Eventual Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump makes his first stop in Phoenix, focusing on immigration and helping set the tone for his upstart campaign.

Dec. 16: Trump packs the airport in Mesa a day after one of the Republican debates.

March 19, 2016: Protesters couldnt stop Trump from drawing thousands to a raucous rally in Fountain Hills the weekend before the states presidential primary. He also stopped in Tucson.

June 18: Trump packs the Veterans Memorial Coliseum on a blistering summer day.

Aug. 31: Trump outlines his hard-line plans for dealing with immigration and border security in a widely anticipated speech in Phoenix. Republican vice presidential nominee Mike Pence was on hand for the event.

Oct. 4: Trump tries to energize his conservative base at a stop in Prescott Valley.

Oct. 29: Trump schedules a record-breaking seventh Arizona stop in a visit to the Phoenix Convention Center.

Feb. 19, 2020: President Donald Trump holds a campaign rally at the Veterans Memorial Coliseum in Phoenix, touting the national economy.

May 5: Trump tours a Phoenix Honeywell facility making respirator masks to cope with the coronavirus pandemic and discusses aid to Native Americans.

June 23: Trump addresses a church full of mostly maskless young people in Phoenix amid a pandemic that followed his disastrous, half-empty rally in Tulsa days earlier. He visited the border wall in Yuma earlier in the day.

Aug. 18: Trump visits Yuma during the Democratic National Convention to highlight his record on building a border wall and attack his Democratic opponents ambitions on immigration.

Sept. 14: Trump holds a roundtable event with a group called Latinos for Trump at the Arizona Grand Resort in an effort to pull in support with a demographic that could be key to carrying the swing state.

Oct. 19: On a day overshadowed by his private insults for epidemiologist Anthony Fauci, Trump targets his base in a hangar visit to Prescott and seeks to boost GOP turnout in a Tucson hangar stop.

Oct. 28: On a day that broke the states record for presidential-ticket visits, Trump held rallies in Bullhead City and Goodyear.

July 24, 2021: Trump attends a Turning Point Action rally in Phoenix and predicts the ongoing ballot review would vindicate his claims of a stolen election.

Jan. 17, 2022: Trump packs 15,000 into a rally in Florence to hear him lament a stolen election, rip President Joe Biden and tease at another run.

July 22: Trump boosted his Republican picks ahead of the August primary at an event in Prescott Valley. It dwarfed events held the same day involving Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey and former Vice President Mike Pence.

Oct. 9: In his third Arizona visit of the year, Trump is expected to urgeRepublicans to support Kari Lake, Blake Masters and the rest of his GOP picks in the midterm elections during the rally in Mesa.

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Here's a list of all Donald Trump's visits to Arizona during his political career - The Arizona Republic

In July, when Trump was asked if hed accept the results of the election, he replied, Ill have to see, then added, I think mail-in voting is going to rig the election. A few months later, from the podium in the East Room, Trump declared, There won't be a transfer; frankly, there'll be a continuation. Still, Liddell kept the train on the tracks.

By law, the sitting White House chief of staff, Meadows, and the transition chairman, Kaufman, were required to sign a Memorandum of Understanding. Fat chance, thought Kaufman. But he sent a draft to the West Wing anyway. I figured that's never going to happen, he said. This is totally against Trumps interests. He'd kill people if he found out it happened.

And yet, on September 30, Kaufmans fax machine suddenly clanked to life and back came the memorandum---signed by Meadows. Trumps chief of staff almost certainly never told his boss. I have it here as one of my prized possessions, Kaufman, who saved the memo, told me. I never in a million years thought Meadows would sign it.

November 3, 2020, Election Day, seemed remarkable for its lack of drama. Despite the pandemicand predictions of outside meddling, chaos at the polls, and confusion over mail-in ballotsvoting had been a model of fairness and efficiency. Though the final results werent immediately clear, Biden would win decisively: 306 to 232 in the Electoral College, and by a margin of seven million in the popular vote. But Trump, defying his closest advisers, declared himself the winner, and the victim of a grand conspiracy. The real drama was yet to come.

Traditionally, the day after a presidential election, the GSA anoints the apparent winner. The act, known as ascertainment, not only formally acknowledges the victor; it also makes available to the incoming administration office space, funding, access to federal agencies, intelligence briefings, and other vital governing infrastructure. But in a startling break with precedent, the GSA administrator, Emily Murphy, a Trump appointee, refused to ascertain Bidens victory.

This was no idle act. Ascertainment is not a ceremonial process, explained Mary Gibert. It has potential life and death implications. The Biden team was furious. Between the election and inauguration, they had just 78 days to ramp up their administration. Theyd recruited 500 volunteers to visit every federal agency and report back on who was doing what. Now they were sitting on their hands.

Bidens contingent had prepared for almost any eventuality. We had 600 lawyers working long, long hours, producing thousands of pages of memos for all sorts of stuff, said Bob Bauer, the campaign senior legal adviser. This was a genuine national security issue: The fact that the president-elect of the United States would be denied access to the tools and the resources for an effective transition was literally, directly, every day, harmful to the countryand in the middle of a public health crisis. Bauer and his team were prepared to sue Murphy and the GSA. But after a spirited debate, the campaign decided to stand down.

A few days later, Liddell called his confidants Marchick and Bolten. "Remember that dinner we had where we talked about the nightmare scenario? Liddell asked. That's what we have." The nightmare scenario was Trump losing the election, but not by enough to convince him that hed lost. Marchick explained: Clearly, Liddell was in meetings in the White House where Trump said, We're going to fight this and we're going to overturn it. Marchick feared Liddell was near the end of his rope. He thought about quitting many times---and wed say, Hey, you can't quit.

Kaufman, Klain, and company were, in effect, designing an airplane in mid-flight. Barred by Trump from access to the agencies, they set up a shadow agency process, compiling lists of former officialsand tapped their expertise. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell refused to call the Senate back in sessionso they interviewed, vetted, and hired officials who didnt require confirmation. This was the Biden transition's innovation, explained Marchick. They lined up thousands to go into the government in these non-confirmed positions so they could staff the government on Day One. They did 8,000 interviews in order to place 1,100.

Finally, on November 23, GSA administrator Murphy declared Biden the winner. But the foot-dragging had been costly. Every day Bidens team couldnt access information about Trumps vaccination program meant delays in getting shots into peoples arms. Every day Bidens team was denied intelligence briefings meant less time to prepare for potential foreign crises. On January 20 at noon, all CIA covert operations ordered by Trump would immediately belong to Biden. During previous transitions, the major party nominees would receive the Presidents Daily Brief (PDB) after their party conventions. Biden and the vice president-elect, Kamala Harris, didnt get their first intelligence briefing until November 30.

Remember that dinner we had where we talked about the nightmare scenario? Thats what we have.

Meanwhile, Trump, to many observers, appeared intent on staging a coup. Hed replaced the secretary of defense and reportedly installed apparatchiks in high places at the CIA. Some worried that he might start a war with Iran as a pretext to stay in power. In response, Liz Cheney, the Wyoming congresswoman, corralled every living former defense secretary, including her father, Dick Cheney, into signing a letter exhorting the military to follow the Constitution. And General Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs, was preparing emergency contingencies. He suspected Trump might stage a domestic crisis to seize powera favorite ploy of autocrats who want to stay in office by exploiting voters fears. In the event of an illegal presidential order, Milley and other top Pentagon officials reportedly made a secret pact to resign, one after another.

To avoid the appearance of a power grab, Bidens camp didnt speak directly with Milley. Instead, they communicated through an intermediary, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. I asked Ted Kaufman if the speaker kept the president-elect informed of Milleys contingency planning. Oh, sure, he said. Absolutely.

Outwardly, the Biden team projected equanimity. As Klain explained, Our whole thing was basically a legal strategy to shut this down in the courtsand a political strategy based on the idea that we won, so we were going to act like we won. We played this out a step at a time: to first get the vote confirmed by the media, to build a sense of inevitability around that, to finally get the GSA to certify us. An adviser to the Biden transition put it this way: We don't need to send up fighter jets to force Air Force One down. Let's just let Trump throw his fit, pursue his legal theories. It'll all fail and he'll run short of fuel and come down for a landing.

As far as Chris Liddell knew, January 6, 2021, promised to be a quiet day. Bidens victory was to be certified by Vice President Mike Pence in a routine count of electoral votes at the U.S. Capitol. Liddell, who was doing his best to stay inconspicuous, could hardly wait. I woke up in the morning in a good mood, thinking: Finally, we're going to get some resolution, he said. The vote's going to happen. Liddell looked at the presidents schedule and noticed a rally on the Washington Ellipse at noon. But he thought little of it. His focus was on the 14 days between then and the inauguration.

Biden legal adviser Bob Bauer was on edge. The truth was that democracy hung by a thread. Bauers team had spent months preparing for this dayand for all the things that could go wrong. Legal scholars agreed that Pences role in the certification procedure was purely ceremonial. But that didnt mean that the vice president couldnt plunge the country into a constitutional crisis.

One option was for Pence to delay the certification. That was the goal of Trumps lawyer John Eastman, Giuliani, and their co-conspirators. A delayed certification could give states an opportunity to try to replace slates of Biden electors with new ones pledged to Trump. Another option was to declare some Biden slates invalid, thereby denying him the required minimum: 270 votes. This would throw the whole process into the House or Representatives. Under the law, in the Houses election of a president, each state delegation would have one vote. And since Republicans in the 2021 House were the majority party in 26 states, Trump would have almost certainly prevailed.

If Pence tried to do Trumps extra-legal bidding, Bauer and his team were poised to file for an injunction. The issue would probably wind up in the Supreme Court, now stacked with three Trump-appointed justices. Yet Bauer believed Biden had the upper hand. If Pence had gone completely rogue, I think we had a very good chance of stopping it, he told me. I thought Trump and his legal team, such as it was, would be crazy to imagine that the court would somehow save him in these circumstances.

Originally posted here:
Exclusive: Inside the Sh*tshow That Was the Trump-Biden Transition - Vanity Fair

Officials at the state and federal level have launched a full-court press against what the financial industry calls environmental, social and governance (ESG) investing. They are especially squawking about investments that take into account the climate crisis, despite the fact that extreme weather events are wreaking havoc across the country.

Since the summer of 2021, five Republican-controlled state legislatures have passed bills banning their state governments from doing business with financial institutions that they allege have divested from fossil fuel companies as a result of ESG investment policies. Another six statehouses are considering similar bills. At last half of the bills are based on a template provided by the fossil fuel industry-funded American Legislative Exchange Council.

In May, former Vice President Mike Pence, writing in The Wall Street Journal, urged congressional Republicans to follow the states example by end[ing] the use of ESG principles nationwide. A month later, GOP lawmakers in Washington told E&E News that they will sponsor legislation that would do just that if they take over one or both chambers of Congress next year.

In August, The New York Times revealed that nearly two dozen Republican state treasurers, working with a relatively unknown nonprofit organization called the State Financial Officers Foundation, are collaborating to blunt climate action at the federal and state level, including withdrawing hundreds of millions of dollars in state investments from financial institutions they deem too preoccupied with environmental issues.

Not to be outdone, 19 Republican state attorneys general also joined the fray in August, falsely claiming that woke asset managers are politicizing their investments by adopting ESG criteria instead of focusing solely on financial returns, as required by law, at the expense of their state pension funds. (No surprise, the fossil fuel industry is a major sponsor of the Republican Attorneys General Association.)

A closer look at the facts shows that big banks and investment firms are still financing the fossil fuel industry to the tune of hundreds of billions of dollars a year. Indeed, a peer-reviewed study published in September linked nearly half of all global carbon emissions from the biggest energy companies to just 10 financial institutions, led by Vanguard and BlackRock, the worlds largest asset manager. One of the anti-ESG Republicans main targets, BlackRock has nearly $260 billion invested in fossil fuel companies around the world, including $91 billion in Texas, the first state to enact an anti-fossil fuel industry divestment law.

However, it is the case that it is more difficult for companies to obtain financing for oil and gas projects than renewable projects due to the mounting impacts of climate change. Lenders have been calculating those risks and factoring them into the cost of credit, leading to what a Goldman Sachs analyst called an unprecedented shift in capital allocation. Last year, she said, marked the first time in history that renewable power [became] the largest area of energy investment.

The larger question is: Are asset managers shirking their fiduciary duty to maximize returns by adopting ESG criteria, which generally favor renewables over fossil fuels? The short answer is no. Studies show that ESG investments actually result in comparableor even betterreturns than investments that only take into account financial factors.

For a deeper dive into this manufactured controversy, I contacted Laura Peterson, a corporate analyst with the Union of Concerned Scientists Climate Accountability Campaign. A former policy analyst for the Project on Government Oversight, Taxpayers for Common Sense, and the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, Peterson recently returned from an international conference on fossil fuel supply and climate policy at the University of Oxford in England, where she gave a talk on the backlash against efforts in the United States to require corporations to publicly disclose the projected impact climate change will have on their operations and assets. Below is an abridged version of our exchange.

EN: First, it would be helpful if you could explain how ESG investments differ from other sustainability investment strategies. Who coined the term, and how is ESG different than socially responsible investing or impact investing?

LP: A 2005 United Nations report, Who Cares Wins: Connecting Financial Markets to a Changing World, introduced the term and the acronym. The report found that incorporating ESG criteria into investments would not only benefit a company, but also potentially generate returns for investors.

ESG is often used interchangeably with the terms socially responsible investing (SRI) and impact investing, but there are important differences. ESG funds take into account a companys environmental, social and governance practices, such as its climate policies or its executive compensation, but their primary goal is always to maximize financial returns. Socially responsible investing involves choosing or disqualifying investments based on specific ethical criteria. A good example would be screening out tobacco company stock. The goal of impact investing, meanwhile, is to help a business or organization support a specific social benefit, such as expanding womens education or developing renewable energy resources.

Even proponents of ESG investing would agree that it is not being implemented perfectly. ESG disclosures vary from company to company. Ratings agencies that assess company data use proprietary methods, making it hard for investors to know how investment firms reach their conclusions. And there is growing concern that some asset managers are slapping ESG labels on funds that dont deserve them.

Thats why the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) proposed rules earlier this year that would tighten standards governing how investment firms and advisers market ESG funds, as well as require funds branded as ESG, SRI or other, similar terms to invest at least 80 percent of their assets in areas suggested by those terms. The proposed rules are intended to guard against greenwashing, when asset managers misrepresent financial products as ESG investments when the companies they are investing in dont fit the criteria. The proposed rules resulted from a 2021 SEC risk alert that found inconsistent approaches to managing ESG-labeled funds as well as inaccurate ESG-related disclosures and marketing materials. Greenwashing can have serious consequences. The SEC recently fined BNY Mellon Investment Adviser $1.5 million for failing to review its investments under its ESG-marketed fund to ensure that they were, in fact, aligned with ESG criteria.

EN: How much money have asset managers put in ESG investments and how much are these investments expected to grow?

LP: Investor demand for ESG products has increased dramatically, and asset managers are listening. According to US SIF: The Forum for Sustainable and Responsible Investment, by January 2020, assets using sustainable investing strategies represented a third of all US assets under professional management. And that percentage will undoubtedly increase. Bloomberg Intelligence estimates global ESG assets are set to jump from $35 trillion today to $50 trillion in 2025.

The finance industry is particularly bullish on the E in ESG. More than 450 financial firms worldwide representing $130 trillion in assets have pledged to meet the 2015 Paris climate agreement goal of net-zero emissions by 2050. Goldman Sachs Carbonomics research estimates that $56 trillion of investments in clean tech infrastructure by 2050$2 trillion annuallywill be needed to reach that goal.

EN: In my introduction, I cited some of the political attacks on ESG investment policies, which rest on the false allegation that financial firms are boycotting fossil fuels. Ironically, pulling state money out of financial institutions that have adopted ESG policies could cost state taxpayers serious money.

LP: Thats right. A recent study by the Wharton School of Business and the US Federal Reserve found that Texas cities will pay an additional $303 million to $532 million in interest on $32 billion in borrowing during the first eight months after the Texas anti-fossil fuel industry divestment law was enacted.

EN: Not all state officials are on board the anti-ESG bandwagon. Last month, Democratic treasury officials from 13 states and New York City blasted politicians who have been promoting anti-ESG legislation. What can you tell us about this campaign?

The treasury officials founded a nonprofit organization called For the Long Term to encourage state financial officers to consider the long-term impacts of their investment decisions. States that focus solely on the short term will fail to compete over the longer time horizon that is necessary for them and their pension funds to succeed, the groups website states. In the case of state and public pension funds, these losses will be borne by the taxpayers and that means all of us.

Last month, they published an open letter criticizing the attacks on ESG investing, stressing that climate change poses predictable economic risks to businesses as well as the general public. They turned the anti-ESG crowds argument on its head, pointing out that trying to punish asset managers that take climate change into account is in fact a political and ideological stance, not one based on pragmatic financial oversight. And it stands to hurt the taxpayers and pensioners whose interests anti-ESG officials are supposed to represent.

Its important that these public financial officers spoke out, because the anti-ESG backlash has had a chilling effect on the modest progress financial institutions have made on addressing climate change.

Consider what has happened at BlackRock. In 2021, BlackRock CEO Larry Fink declared in a letter to the heads of the companies in which BlackRock invests that it is time to confront the global threat of climate change more forcefully and asked them to disclose publicly how their business model is compatible with a net zero economy. Many ESG advocates rightly pointed out at the time that BlackRocks commitments were not specific or ambitious enough, but the letter sent an important signal given the firms influence in the investment community.

A year later, however, it was a different story. Likely in response to the concerted attack on ESG principles, BlackRock backpedaled during this years shareholder proxy season, claiming that climate-related shareholder resolutions were more prescriptive and may not promote long-term shareholder value. And when Texas moved to withdraw state pension funds from financial institutions the state perceives to be unfriendly to oil and gas, BlackRock posted a letter touting its investments in fossil fuel companies.

For the Long Term took notice. Last month, one of the organizations founders, New York City Comptroller Brad Lander, sent a strongly worded letter to Larry Fink to register his growing concern that BlackRock is backtracking on its climate commitments and warning that the city will reassess its relationship with BlackRock if its investment decisions do not match its stated commitment to net zero emissions.

Given that New York City has the countrys fourth largest public pension plan with some $250 billion in assets under management, BlackRock and other major investment firms have to understand that there will be consequences for not addressing the risks and harms of fossil fuel-driven climate change.

In fact, the 14 members of For the Long Term are merely doing their jobs. They have a duty to manage their state and city investments prudently. Given the overwhelming scientific consensus that the climate crisis is happening right now and that there is a rapidly closing window to avert catastrophic damages, it is simply irresponsible not to take this reality into account when making investment decisions.

EN: The US Securities and Exchange Commission has proposed a rule that would mandate and standardize climate disclosures by publicly traded companies, which the State Financial Officers Foundation and Republican attorneys general predictably oppose. What is the status of that rule, and what impact would it have?

LP: The SEC proposed a draft rule in March that would compel publicly traded companies to assess and report on how climate change will affect their bottom lines and, by extension, investors and the general public.

Among its provisions, the rule would require companies to disclose the amount of global warming emissions their businesses produce, estimate how commodity price changes might affect their profits, and detail their plans for implementing carbon emissions reduction targets. To date, the commission has received more than 15,000 comments showing broad support. Ninety percent of the 10,000 form letters it has received back the rule, and an analysis of more than 4,000 individual comments found strong investor community support.

The fossil fuel industry, its trade associations, and the think tanks and advocacy groups it funds oppose various provisions of the proposed rule, claiming that they fall outside the commissions mandate and impose what they consider burdensome reporting requirements, especially when it comes to Scope 3 global warming emissionsemissions that result from the use of a companys products, such as gasolineas opposed to direct emissions from a companys operations, called Scope 1, or emissions from the electricity it uses, called Scope 2.

Echoing the fossil fuel industry, West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey and 20 other Republican state attorneys general filed a comment with the SEC in August opposing the rule, charging that it exceeds the agencys authority, violates the First Amendment, and is arbitrary and capricious. The SEC has not announced when it will issue a final rule, but Morrisey and his fellow attorneys general have pledged to file suit against the SEC to kill it.

The Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) supports the rule, and we have called for the SEC to strengthen it in several ways, including by requiring companies to publicly disclose their direct and indirect political activity and how they are addressing climate justice. UCS has joined with investors and other advocates to urge the SEC to finalize and enforce a strong rule as soon as possible. As the climate crisis worsens, there is no time to waste.

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Ask a Scientist: What's Up With the Attack on ESG Investing? - The Equation

ATLANTA Republican Gov. Brian Kemp has opened a double-digit lead over Democratic challenger Stacey Abrams, according to a poll released Wednesday.

However, Georgias U.S. Senate race is in a dead heat, the Capitol Beat/Georgia News Collaborative Poll found in a survey of 1,030 likely general election voters conducted Sept. 15-Oct. 4 by the University of Georgias School of Public and International Affairs.

The survey found state Sen. Burt Jones, R-Jackson, with a slight lead for the open lieutenant governors seat over Democrat Charlie Bailey.

GOP incumbents hold a solid lead in both the races for attorney general and secretary of state, according to the poll.

Kemp drew the support of 51% of poll respondents to 40.7% for Abrams, giving the governor a lead of 10.3%. Libertarian Shane Hazel was a distant third with 2.3%, while 6% of those surveyed were undecided.

Sen. Raphael Warnock, D-Ga., was favored by 46.4% of the poll respondents, to 43.4% for Republican challenger Herschel Walker. Given the polls margin of error of 3.1 percentage points, the race is essentially tied. Chase Oliver, the Libertarian candidate, trailed at 4.1%, while 6.1% of those surveyed were undecided.

Support for Jones stood at 43.5%, with 38.8% of survey respondents favoring Bailey. Factoring in the margin of error left Jones with a slight lead over his Democratic rival for lieutenant governor. Libertarian Ryan Graham was third at 4.0%, and 13.8% of respondents were undecided.

While Kemp polled slightly above the 50%-plus-one margin needed to avoid a Dec. 6 runoff, the race for Senate and possibly the contest for lieutenant governor could be headed toward an extra round of voting.

The survey found Republican Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger well ahead of state Rep. Bee Nguyen, 47.9% to 33.9%. Libertarian Ted Metz stood third at 6.3%, with 11.8% undecided.

Likewise, GOP Attorney General Chris Carr held a strong lead over Democratic state Sen. Jen Jordan, 47.4% to 38.8%. Libertarian Martin Cowen trailed at 3.6%, with 10.2% undecided.

Although both Raffensperger and Carr were short of the margin needed to win the Nov. 8 election outright, the large percentage of undecided voters left room for the two incumbents to get over the threshold.

Kemps lead over Abrams in the gubernatorial contest has widened over recent polls.

I think hes done a good job, said Misty Dunn, 45, an archaeologist from Meriwether County, a regular Republican voter who supports Kemp even though she disagrees with his staunch opposition to abortion.

I cant vote the other way on that one issue, Dunn said.

Aaron Williams, 42 of McDonough, who works for a telecommunications company, said he plans to vote for Abrams primarily because she is not a Republican, a party he has soured on.

The conservative side has gone full on hypocrisy, Williams said. I cant get behind a single conservative candidate.

Wendy Meehan, 72, of Madison County, said she will vote to elect Warnock to a full Senate term because her positions in favor of Medicaid expansion and against the U.S. Supreme Court decision overturning the constitutional right to abortion align with the Democrats.

Meehan said she doesnt believe Walker is qualified to serve in the Senate.

He should not be a Senate candidate, she said. Georgia could do much better than him.

Lisa Elias, 53, a business owner from Gainesville, said she liked Walker when she saw him speak at her church.

He seemed like a good man, Elias said. Im a Christian, and Im conservative in my values.

But some Republican voters are starting to have concerns about Walker following allegations of violence against his ex-wife and that he paid for a former girlfriends abortion.

If these things are true, thats horrible, said Sarah Simcox, 56, a kindergarten teacher in Forsyth County. But I think politically he might be better [than Warnock]. Im struggling with it. Its going to take a lot of prayer.

Black voters who responded to the poll overwhelmingly preferred Democrats Abrams and Warnock, not surprising since most Black voters support Democratic candidates. But Warnock outperformed Abrams among that group of voters, 89% to 80.7%.

Walker, a former University of Georgia football star, drew only 2% support among Black voters, while Kemp was preferred by 8% of Black survey respondents.

Kemp held a solid lead over Abrams among men, 58% to 33.3%. Walkers lead among men was strong but not as large as Kemps. Walker was supported by 52.5% of men who responded to the poll, compared to 37.7% favoring Warnock.

Warnock, however, enjoyed a huge lead among women, 53.6% to 36.3% for Walker. Women were much more evenly divided in the governors race, with 46.6% preferring Abrams to 45.4% supporting Kemp.

Broken down by age, Kemp held the edge among all groups except for those between the ages of 30 and 44. Among that group, Abrams led 50.6% to 39%.

Warnock led decisively among younger voters, those between the ages of 18 and 44. Walker turned the tables with a solid lead among the 45-64 age group and a smaller lead among voters 65 and older.

Kemp polled strongest among voters with a high school education or less, while Abrams biggest advantage was among college graduates.

The same was true in the Senate race, with Walker scoring highest among those with a high school diploma or less, and Warnocks best showing coming from poll respondents with a college degree.

The poll was conducted via telephone, about 90% through cellphone interviews and 10% over landline connections.

The survey results were weighted to represent respondents proportionally in terms of race, sex, age, and education.

Staff writer Rebecca Grapevine contributed to this report.

This story is available through a news partnership with Capitol Beat News Service, a project of the Georgia Press Educational Foundation.

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Kemp leading Abrams by double digits; Warnock and Walker tied | - Capitol Beat