EXCLUSIVE: Tim Walz Pushed Woke Investment Goals That Raised Energy Prices For Minnesotans

Governor Tim Walz’s embrace of a left-wing environmental, social, and governance (ESG) agenda resulted in higher energy prices for Minnesota residents, a new report from the House Judiciary Committee exclusively obtained by The Daily Wire found.

The report found that Walz collaborated with environmental activist groups that pressured companies to pursue a “net-zero” carbon agenda, and used his post as the chair of the Minnesota State Board of Investment (MSBI), the state’s public pension fund, to further the agenda. His efforts, the Judiciary Committee report says, resulted in higher energy prices for the people of Minnesota.

“Under Governor Walz, the MSBI uses $140 billion in the retirement savings of Minnesota public employees to ‘participate in ESG coalitions and engage with corporations on ESG related issues,’” the report found, also specifically honing in on Ceres Investor Network and Climate Action 100+, two organizations that the report says “form the spine of the climate cartel” and which MSBI collaborates with.

The revelations could hurt Walz and his running mate, Vice President Kamala Harris, in the waning days of the presidential campaign. The economy remains one of the most important issues for voters, and polling has found voters are more likely to say that they trust former President Donald Trump to handle the economy than they do Harris and Walz.

“In recent years, Governor Walz has used the MSBI’s participation in the climate cartel as a weapon in a broader climate crusade against affordable electricity,” the report goes on to read. “In 2023, after extensive coordinated engagement and support from Ceres, Governor Walz ‘signed one of America’s most aggressive climate laws,’” which mandated that all of Minnesota’s electricity come from carbon-free sources by or before 2040.

The move, the House Judiciary Committee says, resulted in undue pressure on a major supplier of electricity to Minnesota, Colorado, Michigan, New York, Texas, Wisconsin, North Dakota, and South Dakota, forcing them to raise costs on some of its 3.8 million consumers.

“Xcel Energy surrendered to the climate cartel and made a series of ‘net-zero’ climate commitments, forcing it to ‘retire’ carbon-based energy production and raise electricity prices throughout the Midwest,” the report reads. The company was even singled out by the activist organization Climate Action 100+, which called XCel a “focus company” as it pressured it to adopt ESG policies, causing prices to jump in the process.

Xcel raised prices in Colorado more than six percent in order to “cover the cost of retiring a handful of coal-fired power plants,” but it was forced to raise prices nearly 10 percent in Walz’s state of Minnesota, which sought to “lead the clean energy transition.” Even worse, however, the company planned to charge Minnesotans as much as “seven times more for electricity during ‘peak’ usage periods.”

The report alleges that the “climate cartel” has been empowered to push its agenda not just by governors like Walz, but by a Biden-Harris administration that’s “refused to enforce” antitrust law despite the organizations engaging in “anticompetitive conduct.”

“Despite the harm to American consumers, the MSBI and other climate cartel investors plan to continue pressuring U.S. companies to surrender to ‘net-zero’ demands,” the report reads. “The Committee remains committed to investigating the climate cartel’s anticompetitive behavior to inform potential legislative reforms to U.S. antitrust laws.”

Read the full House Judiciary Committee report here.