(The Center Square) – Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier announced on Monday that his office has issued subpoenas against two climate change groups involved in environmental, social and governance advocacy.
Uthmeier’s office is going to determine whether the CDP (formerly the Climate Disclosure Project) and the Science Based Targets Initiative violated consumer protection or antitrust laws by coercing companies into disclosing proprietary data and paying for access under the guise of environmental transparency.
“Radical climate activists have hijacked corporate governance and weaponized it against the free market,” Uthmeier said in a release. “Florida will not sit back while international pressure groups shake down American companies to fund their ESG grift. We’re using every tool of the law to stop the Climate Cartel from exploiting businesses and misleading consumers.”
ESG is an acronym used in conjunction with environmental, social, and governance policies in investments.
According to state officials, the 25-year-old CDP was founded by British activists with the goal to “dematerialize economic growth” and “prevent dangerous climate change.”
According to the group’s website, it runs the world’s largest disclosure system and has a quarter of the world’s global companies paying to report, revise and promote their data.
State officials say they are selling services intended to improve their scores.
Uthmeier’s office says the group will even offer favorable quotes from CDP management for a price. The office also says investment groups such as Bloomberg, ISS, S&P Global, and Santander rely on CDP data for financial decisions.
Florida officials say SBTi, which was founded by CDP and the United Nations Global Compact, sells validation of climate goals to companies and directs them to the CDP for progress reporting, which officials say represents a “a profit-driven feedback loop.”
The group says it leads the way toward a net-zero economy, boosting innovation and driving sustainable growth by setting “ambitious, science-based emissions reduction targets.”
The state investigation will center on scrutinizing deceptive trade practices such as selling better scores and public endorsements; “pay for play” with companies incentivized to subsidize the organizations for favorable treatment; misrepresentation of environmental data used by investors and consumers.
Uthmeier’s office will also examine anti-trust issues such as whether there coordination between the groups and financial institutions which the office says could constitution unlawful market manipulation and whether pressure efforts by the CDP against companies that don’t participate had anti-competitive effects.
“The Florida attorney general’s investigation into CDP and SBTi marks a critical step in holding the climate cartel accountable,” said Jason Issac, the CEO of the American Energy Institute. “These activist outfits have built a pay-to-play climate racket that pressures companies into advancing radical agendas, all while profiting from the data they manipulate and the scores they sell. This is not transparency, it’s extortion wrapped in green branding. By exposing and dismantling this scheme, states are standing up for consumers, competition, and the free market.”