FIRST ON THE DAILY SIGNAL: A nonprofit organization dedicated to addressing the concerns of consumers called Consumers’ Research is calling out the U.S. Plastics Pact for pushing environmental, social, and governance policies that have made doing business more difficult in Ohio.
While the U.S. Plastics Pact is hosting a conference in Columbus on Tuesday and Wednesday, Consumers’ Research is looking to ensure people know about the antitrust and ESG concerns surrounding the pact with a mobile billboard campaign.
“U.S. Plastics Pact UNDER ANTITRUST REVIEW,” the Consumers’ Research billboard warns, with sirens. “U.S. Plastics Pact and Its Corporate Partners Face Potential Antitrust Investigation.”
“Consumers Deserve Better,” the billboard adds. “We Are Watching!”
“Consumers should not be forced to comply with a woke climate agenda by organizations like U.S. Plastics Pact who are prioritizing climate mandates over strong economic policies and consumer choice,” Consumers’ Research Executive Director Will Hild said in a statement to The Daily Signal.
While the Biden administration pushed ESG across governmental organizations and advocated for its implementation in corporate America, the Trump administration has sought to combat its spread, arguing these ESG policies are bad for job creation and oftentimes run afoul of federal law.
Ohio has also sought to combat the spread of ESG policies. Last December, Republican Gov. Mike DeWine signed into law a bill prohibiting ESG “with respect to the state retirement systems, Bureau of Workers’ Compensation, and state institutions of higher education.”
Top Republicans in the Buckeye State, including Sen. Bernie Moreno and Vivek Ramaswamy, a businessman running for governor, have been particularly critical of ESG over social media.
Ramaswamy also mentioned the ESG agenda in his book “Woke Inc.”
Hild explained how ESG and its agenda have a harmful effect on Ohio.
“Consumers should never be forced to comply with a woke climate agenda by organizations, such as the U.S. Plastics Pact, who are prioritizing climate mandates over strong economic policies and consumer choice. These groups are advancing restrictive policies that decrease competition, drive up costs, and restrict both the quality and availability of everyday goods. These radical climate policies do not take into regard to consumers and their families,” Hild said.
“For example, Ohio’s energy industry employs more than 350,000 Ohioans and contributes billions of dollars to the state’s economy,” Hild noted. “By pushing climate mandates onto the free market and consumers, these radical organizations are increasing costs on consumers and stifling competition.”
The conference and the mobile billboard looking to draw attention to the U.S. Plastics Pact’s embrace of ESG follows the pact and other organizations recently receiving a letter from Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier and other state attorneys general. The U.S. Plastics Pact is under antitrust review in certain states for potential collusion with corporate partners and other organizations when it comes to pushing such an agenda. The letter addressed to Jonathan Quinn, the president and CEO of the U.S. Plastics Pact, specifically mentions “Antitrust and Consumer Protection Concerns.”
The letter wastes no time in mentioning concerns from Uthmeier and others. “The Pact believes that ‘[e]ngaging stakeholders in concert toward the same targets will initiate a profound paradigm shift’ and ‘create systemic change,’” the attorneys general write. “We have grave concerns that this mission is harmful to our States’ economies, results in higher costs to our States’ consumers, unreasonably restrains trade, and reduces output and quality of goods and services,” they continue.
The attorneys general also drew attention to supposed ESG “targets” the pact aims to meet. “It appears that the Pact uses these targets to ensure as many stakeholders as possible, across entire markets, artificially change the output and quality of their goods and services in a uniform manner, in a way that normal, unrestrained market forces would not otherwise bring about,” the state attorneys general wrote. “This has all the trappings of the sort of ‘adverse, anti-competitive effects’ that the antitrust laws seek to prevent.”
“Radical environmental activists do not have the right, nor the avenue, to suppress business operations in our market. We will not allow these activist organizations to push misguided policies that can’t win at the ballot box and inflate prices for consumers,” Uthmeier said in his statement to The Daily Signal.
Hild thanked Uthmeier for leading his fellow state attorneys general in questioning the practices of the U.S. Plastics Pact.
“Thanks to Florida Attorney General Uthmeier and others, these radical climate organizations are rightfully being called out for potential antitrust and anti-consumer violations. For years, Consumers’ Research has put woke corporations and organizations on blast for using ESG and climate mandates to force consumers to comply with leftwing ideology,” Hild continued. “The U.S. Plastics Pact and their partners are no different and we will be watching their actions. We applaud the AGs for continuing to hold these woke organizations accountable and demanding transparency on behalf of American consumers.”
Similar letters were sent to Green Blue Institute (Sustainable Packaging Coalition) and The Consumer Goods Forum. Iowa Attorney General Brenna Bird, Nebraska Attorney General Mike Hilgers, Montana Attorney General Austin Knudsen, and Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton also signed on.
The Daily Signal reached out to the U.S. Plastics Pact for comment, as well as the other organizations that received letters from the state attorneys general, but did not hear back.
