Today, Congresswoman Maxine Waters (D-CA), the top Democrat on the House Financial Serviced Committee, delivered the following opening statement at a full Committee hearing entitled, “Protecting Investor Interests: Examining Environmental and Social Policy in Financial Regulation.”
Good morning. Today’s hearing marks the beginning of a month-long Republican offensive to feed the daily outrage machine of Fox News and its extreme MAGA Republican allies. This House-wide effort is meant to divide Americans by ripping freedoms, rights, and opportunities away from women, people of color, and members of the LGBTQ community. That is the true meaning of the term “anti-woke” and that’s what today’s hearing is really about. But none of this should come as a surprise to those of us who follow the work of this Committee.
In January, after assuming the Majority, Republicans gutted Congress’ first-ever Diversity and Inclusion subcommittee, a subcommittee I established in 2019. Since then and despite promises made by the Chair, Republicans have done absolutely nothing to examine racial or gender inequality in financial services.
In February, the Committee debated its first bill of the new Congress. Was that bill to address inflation? No. Was it a bill to address housing affordability? Wrong again. No, that bill wasn’t even a bill. It was a meaningless resolution condemning the non-existent threat of socialism in America.
We’ve also had three of the largest bank failures in our nation’s history. In response, Republicans rushed to the floor to… do nothing. Instead of using floor time to deal with the real crises facing the American people, Republicans stoked the culture wars by using Fox News misinformation about a Federal Housing Finance Agency decision that was designed to increase homeownership for the middle class; replacing it instead with a new $5 billion tax on future homebuyers. This is why I called it the “MAGA Housing Scam Act.”
Today is the first of six hearings this month where Republicans will partner with a network of dark-money climate deniers and conspiracy theorists to wage their latest culture war against responsible investing and divert attention away from what really matters in peoples’ lives. The Republican effort to dismantle ESG is integral to their agenda to gut diversity and inclusion across the board. Let’s not forget that after the failure of Silicon Valley Bank, before even bothering to address concerns from depositors, some Republicans suggested SVB failed because it had one black board director.
Let’s set the record straight with data: the research clearly shows that 80 percent of investors are supportive of ESG information because it empowers them to do whatever they want with their money. That’s why I say that ESG should really stand for Empowering Shareholder Growth. ESG isn’t just about values; it’s also about value. Yes, investors need to know how companies are addressing climate risks, how they pay their employees, how diverse their workforce is and more. Investors want this information because it’s good for the performance of their investments, which is also good for society. That’s as capitalist and as American as it gets.
While I believe that the series of hearings this month is a terrible use of this Committee’s time, rest assured that Committee Democrats will continue to thwart this anti-capitalist, anti-investor, anti-business, and anti-American effort.
I yield back.
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