MRCTV readers might have seen my October 17 article covering the four states (South Carolina, Louisiana, Utah, and Arkansas – all, home to vast petrochemical resources such as oil, coal, and natural gas) that recently divested funds from BlackRock, one of the largest asset management corporations on Earth (tied for number one with Vanguard, both with approximately $8.1 to $8.4 trillion in assets).
In the article, I got to mention that BlackRock represented just part of the “government/crony-corporate/world-banking-elite” that is pushing climate fear and grabbing decades-forged chains of “regulations” that trap us and our progeny.
Under the awkward title Environmental-Social-Governance” (ESG), these elitists are trying to leverage investments, government diktats, pork-projects, and propaganda to create a future dominated by “Carbon Emission” taxes, bans on fossil fuels, and dumps of cash into dangerous, inefficient “green tech”.
Well, the latest news indicates that more civilians are pushing back against BlackRock’s ESG infatuation.
First, DailyWire’s Ben Seizloft reports that UBS (United Bank of Switzerland) analyst Brennan Hawken has downgraded the BlackRock target stock price by nearly a full percentage point:
“As several conservative state officials continue to pull hundreds of millions from BlackRock and other asset managers, Hawken slashed the target stock price from $700 to $585.”
Second, Rebecca Terrell reports for The New American that Iowa property owners recently found a way to block BlackRock-tied eminent domain seizure of their land -- seizure that had been planned since last year as part of the wildly anti-constitutional Biden “Infrastructure” scheme to pump billions into so-called “Carbon-Capture” pipeline projects.
In this case, it’s a 1,300 mile “carbon” pipeline scheme called the “Heartland Greenway System” that is connected to BlackRock through a corporation called Navigator CO2, and which is, as she writes:
“…intended to transport millions of tons of liquid CO2 captured from 20 industrial locations in Iowa, Illinois, Minnesota, Nebraska, and South Dakota. If completed, the pipeline’s final destination will be an underground storage facility in central Illinois, but the bulk of the network will cross through the middle of Iowa, from the northwest to southeast corners.”
She adds:
“It’s the latest in an ongoing saga involving billions in federal government subsidies to expand pipelines for money-wasting carbon-capture schemes nationwide. Last year’s $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill, passed by Congress with the invaluable help of 13 Republicans in support of President Biden’s ‘Build Back Better’ carbon-neutral agenda, contained $2.1 billion to fund low-interest loans for carbon dioxide (CO2) pipeline expansion.”
This is the kind of federal subsidy for so-called “infrastructure” – whatever the purported rationale – previous generations witnessed with the mother of boondoggles, the Trans-Continental Railway, which was not sanctioned by the Constitution, was years behind schedule, far over-budget, zig-zagged through political districts to “bring home the bacon”, and even saw contractors plant rails on frozen land while fully aware that the soil would thaw and the work would require repair.
In other words, these are toweringly unconstitutional, immoral, and economy-decoupled drags on the economy, not cheer-inspiring achievements in American history.
Explains Terrell:
“Private landowners in Iowa are encouraged by a recent court victory in Woodbury County amid battles to protect property rights. A judge ruled in early October that a carbon-capture pipeline company could not conduct a survey of a farm without the landowner’s consent.
The ruling caused Navigator CO2, a corporation affiliated with Larry Fink’s leftist financial behemoth BlackRock, to withdraw similar requests for access to private farmland through court orders intended to circumvent litigation that will be playing out in coming months.”
Both the easement concept and the affrontery of so-called “eminent domain” are poisonous to property rights and the sovereignty of the individual. Easements began as British Common Law traditions but have been corrupted by states, taking the neighborly act of allowing abutters and passers-by to move through a portion of one’s land in order to get products to market, and turning it into a consequentialist, government-dictated “you MUST give up X feet of space” to the town or state for road or sidewalk use.
Without choice, you don’t control your property. And without control, you don’t really own it.
Related: Four Red States Withdraw $1B In Gov't Investments In BlackRock | MRCTV
Eminent domain was made worse by the 2005 Supreme Court “Kelo v New London” decision, in which the court majority ruled that the old – and already consequentialist – rip-off of government “taking private land for the public good” could be morphed into a government taking private land in order hand it to a business or corporation, claiming that the increased tax revenue from the new owner would “benefit the public.”
In this Iowa case, one can’t necessarily celebrate a philosophical victory over the evil of eminent domain or easement, but one can celebrate a tactical win over BlackRock and ESG.
By blocking a surveyor from coming onto the land, the owners have prevented the corporate-government hydra from getting an idea of whether the private turf they want to grab will facilitate their goofball “Carbon Pipeline” plans.
And those plans bring other risks to local inhabitants, as well.
Pipeline Fighters Hub reports that, of course, CO2 is an asphyxiant, and a 2020 CO2 pipeline leak in Satartia, Mississippi, appears to have caused dozens of people to fall ill.
Terrell notes the scale of the CO2 sequestration threat:
“Brian Jorde of Domina Law Group is representing dozens of landowners in Iowa and other affected states against both Navigator and Summit Carbon Solutions. Longer by 800 miles than Navigator’s network, Summit’s proposed 2,100-mile Midwest Carbon Express pipeline would span five states: Iowa, Nebraska, Minnesota, South Dakota, and North Dakota.”
And the corporate-government push isn’t just a Democrat scheme. RINO Republicans are deeply involved, as well…
Related: ESG - Environmental-Social-Governance: Tyranny, Tech, and Government Subsidies | MRCTV
“Summit is headed by ag magnate and GOP bankroller Bruce Rastetter, and former Iowa Republican Governor (and former US Ambassador to China from 2017 to 2020) Terry Branstad serves as senior policy advisor. Summit’s political connections don’t end there; its general counsel is attorney Jess Vilsack, son of former Iowa Democratic Governor Tom Vilsack, who currently serves in the Biden administration as Agriculture Department secretary.”
Given potential conflicts of interest such as those, it might come as no surprise that targets of the Iowa “Greenway” scheme tried and failed for the past year to get federal Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) responses to key “regulatory” questions.
But they did discover that no “carbon-capture” project ever has turned a profit without government help.
So, here’s a parting idea for BlackRock and others riding the Climate Fear Choo-Choo…
If these “Carbon Sequestration” schemes are such good plans, why don’t you decouple from the government cash and control gravy train and try to run real businesses attached to real market prices for real products and services?
Perhaps you won’t do so because the purported threat is as unfounded as the idea that it’s morally acceptable for the government to seize private land…
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Andrew Puzder says far-left "ESG standards" are "a threat" to our democracy, our economic freedom, and our individual liberty. pic.twitter.com/Ba8dMaDZIH
— MRCTV (@mrctv) October 20, 2022