Consumers’ Research Launches Campaign Exposing How BlackRock Raises Energy, Housing Prices

Consumers’ Research launched a new campaign exposing how BlackRock weaponizes Americans’ retirement funds to wage war on the American fossil fuel industry, which raises energy and housing costs.

Consumers’ Research this week launched a national campaign to expose BlackRock, the world’s largest asset manager with over $10 trillion in assets under management, and the deleterious effects the company has on the American people.

As part of this campaign, the consumer advocacy organization launched a national television ad, released a consumer warning cautioning against putting investment funds in BlackRock, sent a letter to many governors about BlackRock, and launched AboutBlackRock.com to explain further about the financial behemoth.

Will Hild, the executive director of Consumers’ Research, said in a statement this week that Americans should know if their money is going to further leftist goals that only lead to higher energy, housing, and other costs. Hild elaborated:

BlackRock is using money that doesn’t belong to them to push an extreme agenda with no regard for American families who are paying the price not only now, but through their pension funds which are being weaponized to the detriment of their potential profits. Consumers deserve to know where their investments are going, especially when it’s leading to higher costs everywhere from gas pumps and groceries to rent prices and housing costs. We cannot let liberal elites like Larry Fink dictate how Americans should live so he can force an agenda and line his pockets. Fink’s ESG façade is one of the biggest racquets the world has seen.

The Consumers’ Research ad highlights how BlackRock has spent years harassing oil and gas companies to hike gas prices, and how BlackRock-owned companies are buying up houses across the country, raising housing prices:

The Consumer Warning and the ad also detail how Brian Deese, President Joe Biden’s chair of the National Economic Council (NEC), also led BlackRock’s Global Head of Sustainable Investing. As Consumers’ Research put it, Deese helped advance BlackRock’s Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) agenda.

As documented by the Consumer Warning, BlackRock CEO Larry Fink has been a relentless advocate of pushing American companies to address alleged climate change. The chief executive of the world’s largest asset manager told the New York Times that “behaviors are going to have to change … You have to force behaviors, and at BlackRock, we are forcing behaviors.”

This climate change lobbying includes putting three “liberal activist investors” on the board of Exxon, which is now considering divesting from two of the largest gas recovery projects.

As part of its consumer warning, Consumers’ Research recommended:

• Retail investors reconsider using BlackRock’s services, especially any passive investing funds such as the iShares fund brand and consider alternatives that do not abuse their fiduciary role.
• Employees should consider contacting their human resources department to see if BlackRock manages their company’s 401(k) accounts or pension fund.
• Individuals with state or municipal pensions should contact state officials to find out if any portion of their pension fund is managed by BlackRock.

The Consumer Warning was sent to states whose economy has been most impacted by BlackRock, which includes Colorado, Utah, Arizona, Nevada, Wyoming, Montana, New Mexico, Idaho, Alaska, Louisiana, Oklahoma, and Texas.

Consumers’ Research sent a letter to the governors of these states highlighting many of these concerns:

BlackRock, along with other large firms like Vanguard and State Street, are weaponizing passive
investing funds, abrogating their fiduciary duty, and betraying the pensioners they are supposed
to be serving. It’s not just fossil fuels, BlackRock has targeted other industries like agriculture,
manufacturing, mining and extraction. Their reckless tampering with the companies Americans
depend on to deliver products and keep costs down is driving inflation by restricting capital
investments. BlackRock brags openly about the thousands of face-to-face “engagements” they
have with targeted companies, threatening them with negative actions if they don’t comply with
their radical agenda.

The impacts go beyond our national borders. Despite their constant push for radical “net zero”
goals here in the US, BlackRock funnels billions of investor dollars into Chinese companies that
often use forced labor, have horrible environmental records, and in some cases, develop
equipment for the Chinese military. The net effect of their hypocrisy is to place corporations in
your state at a significant disadvantage when competing globally for capital and customers.
BlackRock’s actions undermine national security.

Hild concluded in his statement, “We will continue our work to safeguard American consumers from unknowingly contributing to their country’s own downfall and the propping up of China’s communist regime.”