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Happy 1-Year Anniversary Congressional Sustainable Investment Caucus!

Insights
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January 25 2024
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Capitol Building

One year ago today, US SIF: Sustainable Investment Forum partnered with Representatives Sean Casten (IL-06) and Juan Vargas (CA-52) to launch the Congressional Sustainable Investment Caucus. In a year where opponents of sustainable investing have attempted to sway investor and public opinion away from the main-street common-sense investment practice, the Congressional Sustainable Investment Caucus has been an excellent avenue to help defend investor choice. We believe that, largely due to the work of the caucus and investors, the political attacks on sustainable investing in Congress have amounted to little real impact and have instead highlighted the lack of knowledge about the industry by our opponents.

The caucus was formed with the following goals in mind:

  • Educate members of Congress about the market-driven benefits of sustainable investment and inform policymaking that provides investor protection and market transparency.

  • Hold regularly scheduled events, briefings, and discussions with investors, fund managers, companies, and regulators.

  • Support the ability of federal agencies to advance proposals, rules and regulations that recognize the importance of utilizing ESG criteria in the investment process.

Over the past year, the Caucus has held staff-level briefings on the basics of sustainable investing, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) proposed regulator on climate risk disclosure, investor engagement with corporations through proxy voting, trends in accounting and investor demands for ESG data, and the importance of human capital management disclosures. The Caucus also held a member-level briefing on the basics of sustainable investing, the panel for which included US SIF Managing Director Bryan McGannon, that prepared members for Congressional hearings on sustainable investment issues and led the pushback to House Financial Services “Anti-ESG Month” in July 2023. We have been very excited by the work of Reps. Casten, Vargas and the entire caucus and we are proud to continue to work very closely with the caucus’s staff to ensure that its members are armed with the facts when sustainable investing topics emerge across Capitol Hill.

Thank you again to the entire sustainable investment caucus for being the voice of investors in Congress. Members of the caucus include Rep. Brad Sherman (CA), Rep. Seth Magaziner (RI), Rep. Sean Casten (IL), Juan Vargas (CA), Emmanual Cleaver (MO), Raul Grijalva (CA), Bill Foster (IL), Bill Keating (MA), Earl Blumenauer (OR), Stephen Lynch (MA), Adam Schiff (CA), Wiley Nickel (NC), Brittany Pettersen (CO), Jared Huffman (CA), Mike Quigley (IL), Gregory Meeks (NY), Bonnie Watson Coleman (NJ), Jamie Raskin (MD) and Mike Levin (CA).