“Trump’s rule held that if two good investments graded equally on likely risks and potential returns, ESG factors could serve as a tiebreaker, but, like the vice president’s vote in the Senate, should have no deciding force absent a deadlock.”
…
“”The Biden Rule, like the Trump Rule, confirms the permissibility of ESG investing in pursuit of improved risk-adjusted returns in accordance with prudent investor principles without mandating such an investment strategy,” argue Northwestern’s Max M. Schanzenbach and Harvard’s Robert H. Sitkoff. “ERISA fiduciaries who did not use ESG factors prior to 2022 should feel no greater urgency to begin doing so now. And ERISA fiduciaries who are investing for collateral benefits continue to run the same fiduciary risk as before.””
…
“Nevertheless, politicians—the president among them—have exaggerated the new rule’s immediate policy impact. “It simply states that if fiduciaries wish to consider ESG factors—and if their methods are shown to be prudent—they are free to do so.””
“Kentucky is currently without abortion access, as the state’s only two abortion providers have suspended operations while they challenge a new law that they say makes it impossible for them to provide abortions legally.
The law—House Bill 3, passed in March—made abortion illegal after 15 weeks of pregnancy. It also instituted several new restrictions on abortion provision before this cutoff, including a ban on abortion pills being shipped in the mail or otherwise provided outside a physician’s office.
“Instead, the patient must visit a physician in person to receive the first dose and it requires her to be counseled that the procedure may be reversed after the first pill, an assertion which medical organizations say is not based on any evidence,” notes the Louisville Courier Journal.
The 15-week ban got the most attention, but it’s the other provisions that currently make it impossible for Kentucky’s abortion clinics to continue operating at all, say the providers. These provisions include requiring the state’s Cabinet for Health and Family Services to create an elaborate certification process for anyone making, shipping, or dispensing abortion pills.
“We cannot comply with the many, many, many, many burdens within the bill,” Tamarra Wieder, Kentucky state director for Planned Parenthood, told the Associated Press.
That’s in part because the regulations took effect immediately—before the processes for complying with them were even in place.
“The law requires that providers are, for instance, registered with the state, certified with the state as providers who can dispense medication abortions. That program doesn’t exist yet, so there’s no way for providers to be certified at the moment,” Heather Gatnarek, an attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) in Kentucky, told NPR.”