Press Release
Washington, D.C. — Senator Tom Cotton (R-Arkansas) last night sent a letter to Larry Fink, Chairman and CEO of BlackRock Inc., demanding answers about the firm’s involvement in a scheme to reduce drilling for oil and gas that may violate antitrust law.
In part, Cotton wrote, “BlackRock is an ‘investor participant’ in Climate Action 100+ (‘CA100+’), ‘an investor-led initiative’ to pressure ‘the world’s largest corporate greenhouse gas emitters [to] take necessary action on climate change’ like, for example, pressuring oil companies to drill for less oil. According to CA100+, ‘investor participants’ are ‘signatories to the initiative and are responsible for direct engagements with focus companies’ that directly compete with one another.”
“Your anti-drilling coercion threatens our national security, hurts Americans struggling to buy a tank of gas, and appears to violate antitrust laws. Specifically, by engaging with competing ‘focus companies,’ CA100+ investor participants appear to be running a spoke-and-hub conspiracy to restrict the supply of fossil fuels and impose various other unlawful restraints on trade. By ‘collaborating’ with other investors, you and your fellow CA100+ investor participants appear to be acting like a climate cartel,” Cotton continued.
Text of the letter may be found here and below.
Dear Mr. Fink,
I'm writing about your involvement in a scheme to reduce drilling for oil and gas.
BlackRock is an "investor participant" in Climate Action 100+ ("CA100+"), "an investor-led initiative" to pressure "the world's largest corporate greenhouse gas emitters [to] take necessary action on climate change" like, for example, pressuring oil companies to drill for less oil. According to CA100+, "investor participants" are "signatories to the initiative and are responsible for direct engagements with focus companies" that directly compete with one another.
Your anti-drilling coercion threatens our national security, hurts Americans struggling to buy a tank of gas, and appears to violate antitrust laws. Specifically, by engaging with competing "focus companies," CA100+ investor participants appear to be running a spoke-and-hub conspiracy to restrict the supply of fossil fuels and impose various other unlawful restraints on trade. By "collaborating" with other investors, you and your fellow CA100+ investor participants appear to be acting like a climate cartel.
In light of the growing concerns about anti-competitive ESG activities, many law firms have begun offering antitrust counsel to clients participating in initiatives like CA100+.
Please provide answers to the following questions by July 20, 2022:
Has BlackRock engaged with any focus companies as part of the CA100+ initiative? If so, please list each focus company.
Has BlackRock collaborated with any other investor participants as part of the CA100+ initiative? If so, please list each investor participant.