July 4th is almost here. It’s time to celebrate freedom, independence, and America’s birthday with new environmental, social, governance (ESG) policies and federal regulations to make your hot dogs, hamburgers, and backyard fireworks more expensive. Ironically, just as Americans gather to remember our declared independence from King George’s overreach, the Biden administration will be embracing new European-style climate-control rules that have proven just as tyrannical.
Under President Biden’s proposed rule, U.S. companies must issue annual ESG reports for shareholders. The idea is to help investors invest in companies that share their environmental goals and supposed social values, which sounds harmless on its face, but as stricter ESG and emissions reporting requirements steer investment dollars away from energy companies, agricultural firms, and some food processors, the American consumer will ultimately pay the price at Kroger, Safeway, and every other grocery store from sea to shining sea.
ESG investors will pressure food processing companies, for example, to buy food only from farmers who can afford pricey emissions tracking equipment and high-priced ESG auditors, and who adopt expensive, dubiously sustainable farming practices. As the chairman of Coller Capital, a massive ESG investing network that oversees $69 trillion, proudly announced: “cows are the new coal, and we can’t meet our climate goals without addressing them.”
And to “address them,” ESG-minded firms will squeeze farmers to curb their emissions by adopting labor-intensive regenerative agriculture practices, using naturally sourced fertilizers, and culling herds that emit too much methane. Taking these steps will increase farming costs, decrease harvests, and reduce meat supply. Farmers facing higher costs to cover their carbon tracks, smaller herds, and limited harvests combined with the economic law of supply and demand can only equal higher prices for consumers in the checkout line and food shortages.
If you don’t believe me, just ask Europe.
European governments began imposing stringent ESG requirements several years ago and their people have been hamstrung by food shortages, rampant price hikes, and environmental taxes ever since. To meet climate goals, Ireland, for example, will address its “new coal problem” by needlessly slaughtering 200,000 cattle. The Netherlands opted for spending billions of dollars to buy farmland and convincing farmers to stop farming. More generally, Europe’s high carbon taxes forced European fertilizer producers to buy from the American heartland where natural gas is plentiful and carbon emissions remain untaxed. But Europe’s farmers will no longer benefit from cheaper, American-made fertilizer because the European Union has levied new carbon emissions import taxes.
President Biden chose to follow these and other disastrous examples when he signed his John Hancock and rejoined the Paris Climate Accords in 2021. Since then, American families have been scrimping their way through the highest food-price inflation in half a century. But the Biden Administration wants even higher prices with its allegiance to European climate ideology, misguided ESG mandates, and proposal to quadruple the estimated “social cost of carbon” to $190 per metric ton. Accounting for that alleged carbon cost would make next year’s July 4th barbecue at least 77 percent more expensive. A hamburger will cost double what it does today. And 15 percent more for deli potato salad and a store-bought apple pie.
As the parades and fireworks remind us, America declared its independence from European rule once before. It looks like it may be time to do so again.
