On October 30, U.S. Senator Bill Cassidy (R–LA), a doctor who chairs the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions, and fellow committee member Senator Jim Banks (R–IN) reintroduced legislation designed to prevent retirement plan managers from considering environmental, social, and governance (ESG) factors when choosing investments.
Cassidy’s legislation, the Restoring Integrity in Fiduciary Duty Act (S. 3086), is the latest effort by Republicans to counter a 2022 U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) rule supported by the Biden administration that encourages financial advisors to consider ESG factors (such as the impact of the unfolding climate emergency) in making retirement investment decisions on behalf of employees.
Cassidy first introduced the legislation last year after President Biden vetoed a 2023 bill to eliminate the rule and congressional Republicans lacked the votes to override it. Last spring the Trump administration abandoned its defense of the DOL rule in the face of a lawsuit filed by Republican attorneys general and fossil fuel interests and has since announced its intention to issue a new rule by May 2026.
The legislation covers all retirement investments made by employees themselves (such as 401k plans) or on their behalf (as in defined benefit agreements).
Between 2019 and 2024, Cassidy received $522,768 in campaign contributions from oil and gas interests, with $319,168 of that from individuals and $203,600 from industry PACs. In the first half of this year, he accepted another $22,000 from oil and gas industry PACs.
Additionally, in the 2014 election cycle, fossil fuel giant Koch Industries’ astroturf operation Americans for Prosperity (AFP) spent $817,874 on attack ads against Cassidy’s Democratic opponent, longtime Senator Mary Landrieu, who ultimately lost.
Banks, the bill’s cosponsor, served in the U.S. House from 2016–24, when he was elected to the Senate. During his time in the House, he received $283,617 in campaign contributions from the oil and gas industry.
Banks got a jumpstart on his congressional career from Koch operative Jeff Crank’s Aegis Strategic, a consulting firm founded “with the Kochs’ blessing after an analysis concluded that their network’s efforts in the run-up to the 2012 election suffered from flawed GOP candidates,” as Politico reported.
Before he was elected to Congress, Banks served as an Indiana state senator from 2010–16 and was a member of the secretive, fossil fuel-backed pay-to-play American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), which touts him as an alumnus.
In 2024, AFP presented Banks with an award for working so closely with the organization to advocate for its priorities in Washington.
The same day that Cassidy reintroduced his bill, Banks reintroduced the “Providing Complete Information to Retirement Investors Act” (S. 3083), which requires fiduciaries to warn plan participants of “higher risks” if they choose alternative investments, such as those that embrace ESG goals.
The latest Republican effort in Congress builds on the success of GOP state financial officers — and the right-wing operatives, groups, and funders they work with — in manufacturing a crisis around responsible investing while attacking “woke capitalism,” as the Center for Media and Democracy (CMD) chronicles on SFOF Exposed.
ALEC is a major player in this effort, as CMD has documented. During a special meeting of its Tax and Fiscal Policy task force in March 2022, ALEC adopted a model State Government Employee Retirement Protection Act, which was then amended at its 2022 annual meeting. The model policy prohibits anyone managing state, local, or university public pensions from considering the climate emergency or other social or political factors when investing pension funds.
Notably, Banks sat on ALEC’s Tax and Fiscal Policy task force when he was a state senator.
David Armiak contributed research to this report.
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