In what is clearly a harbinger of what could come out of the 2024 Presidential election, a nonprofit is being "chased" by the Congress for pursuing its mission - a mission that clearly ruffles the feathers of the Republican Party. For sure this effort by Jim Jordon represents a plan in action to stifle efforts that do not fully jive with the Republican party recognizing that the current system of government is not intended to singularly thwart the efforts of any nonprofit just because it doesn't do what Politicians want. Were that the case, Democrats could pursue the Heritage Foundation for meddling with the state of the world and there are an equally large number of nonprofits that fall in one "perceived" camp or another. That said, this effort should send red flags to those who are not politically consistent with those who may win the 2024 election. At the same time, the source of this story generally operates with one lens - the lens that's consistent with the chasers in this story.
House Republicans are seeking internal records from a Boston-based left-leaning nonprofit that has helped to influence President Joe Biden's policies on climate change and is seeking a transcribed interview with one of its senior directors.
The House Judiciary Committee is investigating whether the Ceres Investor Network might have violated antitrust law by helping to lead a $68 trillion climate initiative that includes companies pressuring regulators to adopt green energy policies, the Washington Examiner reported Friday.
Ceres said on its website it "represents more than 220 institutional investors with $44 trillion in assets under management who are committed to responsible investment practices and policies that help protect the planet while also improving portfolio value."
Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, the committee's chair, wrote letters Friday to Andrew Logan, Ceres' senior director of climate and energy, oil and gas, and the group's attorney Matthew Miller, stating that Ceres hasn't cooperated with a June 2023 subpoena issued to the group for information on its promotion of environmental, social, and governance (ESG) policies, the Examiner reported.
"Ceres has failed to produce materials from the Ceres investor portal, a communications and information-sharing platform used by Ceres and its members," Jordan wrote to Miller. "Such materials are directly responsive to the committee's subpoena, and despite repeated outreach by the committee and good faith attempts to work with Ceres, Ceres has continually refused to produce documents from its investor portal."
Jordan also requested that Logan appear in front of the committee for a transcribed interview by July 26 "on what extent Ceres may facilitate collusion to promote ESG-related goals."
In June, the Judiciary Committee released an interim staff report that showed it obtained evidence of a "climate cartel" of left-leaning environmental activists and major financial institutions that has colluded to force American companies to "decarbonize" and reach "net zero."
The report said "radical nonprofit organizations" like Ceres are part of the cartel, and "through their commitments to groups such as Climate Action 100+, the members of the climate cartel expressly have agreed to decarbonize the American economy by forcing corporations to disclose their carbon emissions, to reduce their carbon emissions, and to enforce [and reinforce] their disclosure and reduction commitments by handcuffing company leadership and muzzling corporate free speech and petitioning."
"The climate cartel imposes these radical policies by weaponizing ever-escalating pressure tactics that start with negotiations with corporate management, continue to filing and 'flagging' stockholder proxy resolutions, and culminate with taking out the boards of directors at 'recalcitrant companies,'" the report read.
Based on internal documents, Ceres worked behind the scenes to shape a climate disclosure rule by the Securities and Exchange Commission that many energy groups claim is a free-market overreach, the Examiner reported in January.
Ceres spokeswoman Sara Sciammacco told the Examiner the group received the letters from Jordan.
"Ceres will continue to cooperate with the committee," Sciammacco said.
Michael Katz ✉
Michael Katz is a Newsmax reporter with more than 30 years of experience reporting and editing on news, culture, and politics.