Washington, D.C. — Senator Tom Cotton (R-Arkansas) today introduced the Protecting Equal Opportunity from ESG Act, legislation that would require that federal contractors certify that they do not use any racial quotas or have any policies that encourage or require discrimination based on race. Senators Bill Hagerty (R-Tennessee), Josh Hawley (R-Missouri), and Rick Scott (R-Florida) are cosponsoring the legislation.

Bill text may be found here.

“No federal contractor should give into leftist pressure have racial quotas and benchmarks in their hiring processes. This legislation will make sure no company doing business with the federal government engages in discriminatory practices,” said Senator Cotton.

“No government policy should be based on race or ethnicity, a habit of the woke left. I’m proud to join Senator Cotton and our colleagues on this commonsense legislation, and urge others to join us and pass it,” said Senator Scott.

The Protecting Equal Opportunity from ESG Act would:

• Reinforce existing equal opportunity protections through clarifying, by statue, that government contractors are prohibited from adopting racial quotas.

• Prohibit the United States government from doing business with companies that have used racial quotas or policies that employ racial discrimination within the past five years, redirecting federal contract dollars to businesses aligned with our constitutional values.

• Include a “national interest” waiver to the five-year lookback provision for contractors in key industries, allowing for narrow exceptions for critical contracts, especially in the first five years after the bill becomes law.