Politics

Biden issues 1st veto of his presidency to protect investment rule

Washington, Mar 20 (EFE).- President Joe Biden on Monday issued the first veto of his presidency to block a Republican bill to revoke a rule governing retirement fund investments.

The president’s veto of the initiative was expected and blocked the repeal of a Labor Department rule allowing people to invest money in their retirement accounts to further environmental and social goals.

In a statement, Biden emphasized that Republican lawmakers want to eliminate the rule protecting the retirement investments of tens of thousands of workers and retirees.

“This bill would risk your retirement savings by making it illegal to consider risk factors MAGA House Republicans don’t like,” Biden tweeted on Monday. “Your plan manager should be able to protect your hard-earned savings – whether Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (of Georgia) likes it or not.”

The Biden administration in the past had put a rule into place establishing that retirement plan managers can take the climate crisis and other environmental, social and corporate governance factors into account when making investments on behalf of their customers.

This rule replaced another one dating from the 2017-2021 Republican Donald Trump administration, which discouraged plan managers from taking those factors into account.

The Biden rule allows plan managers to consider those factors but does not require them to do so.

The bill to reverse the Biden government’s rule was approved in the GOP-controlled House of Representatives and in the Democratic-controlled Senate, although there it received the support of two moderate Democratic senators.

Biden said that there is ample proof that environmental, social and corporate governance factors can have a material impact on the markets, industry and business.

He said that the GOP bill would have forced plan managers to ignore elevated risk factors like the climate crisis or bad corporate governance.

The Republicans criticize Biden’s kind of regulation because, in their opinion, it infringes on the right of Americans to make their own investment decisions and is part of the progressive political agenda pushed by Democrats.

Defenders of the rule, however, say that taking such factors into account when making investment decisions can lead to people making money by having a positive impact on the planet and avoiding the financial risks deriving from the climate crisis.

EFE –/bp

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