Casten to Megabank CEOs: Will You Agree to End Funding to Group Spreading Climate Financial Disinformation?
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
September 21st, 2022
Contact: Jacob.Vurpillat@mail.house.gov
Casten to Megabank CEOs: Will You Agree to End Funding to Group Spreading Climate Financial Disinformation?
Washington, D.C. — Today, during a Financial Services Committee hearing, U.S. Congressman Sean Casten (IL-06) called on the CEOs of Wells Fargo and JPMorgan Chase to commit to stop funding the State Financial Officers Foundation (SFOF), a right-wing climate denialism group that actively promotes legislation requiring state and city treasurers to blacklist companies that evaluate climate risk in their investment decisions.
Rep. Casten said “Can either of you commit, while you are here, that you will not continue to fund an organization that is spreading disinformation that is blocking the capital sector from freely allocating capital?”
Jamie Dimon, Chairman and CEO of JPMorgan Chase & Co., responded “If that were true, I probably would cancel it.”
??A number of prominent financial institutions, including JPMorganChase and Wells Fargo, are among the sponsors of the State Financial Officers Foundation (SFOF) and, until recently, were listed on SFOF’s website as such.
You can watch Rep. Casten’s questioning by clicking here.
Last month, the New York Times reported that SFOF has been at the forefront of a coordinated attack on climate financial action by Republican state treasurers.
Six states have passed model legislation called the "Energy Discrimination Elimination Act," which seeks to punish financial institutions that are deemed to be "boycotting" fossil fuels. These laws led West Virginia’s treasurer to falsely claim that certain large financial institutions are boycotting fossil fuels, and cancel contracts worth hundreds of millions of dollars with Wells Fargo, Morgan Stanley, JPMorganChase, and Goldman Sachs. Nationally, these laws are having their intended “chilling effect” on financial institutions, have turned out to be a nightmare of implementation, and are proving costly for the public and municipalities.
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