WASHINGTON— Wednesday, the U.S. House of Representatives passed Congressman Jim Banks (IN-03), a member of the House Education and Workforce Committee bill, the Providing Complete Information To Retirement Investors Act, to amend the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) to warn participants before making potentially risky investment decisions, such as in ESG investments, through a brokerage window. Read the bill text here.
Rep. Banks said, “Indiana recently did great by divesting its public retirement assets from an ESG fund. Hard-working retirees’ savings shouldn’t be spent on the radical left’s agenda, and investors deserve to be warned before handing their dollars to risky, politically-motivated funds. My bill will give ERISA participants full awareness of the downsides of ESG before they make financial decisions. I hope the Senate takes up my measure to provide transparency and allow retirees to make fully-informed investment decisions.”
Background:
As the Supreme Court has attested, ERISA does not allow retirees’ savings to advance nonpecuniary goals like ESG. However, some ERISA plans offer brokerage windows or self-directed brokerage accounts, which allow participants to invest based on such nonpecuniary factors.
To protect pensioners’ hard-earned savings, Rep. Banks’ Providing Complete Information To Retirement Investors Act would require a four-part pop-up warning to be displayed to ERISA participants before investing in a brokerage window:
The participant may construct a retirement savings portfolio from designated investment alternatives prudently selected and monitored by a plan fiduciary. In choosing and monitoring the designated investment alternatives, the plan’s fiduciary considers the risk of loss and the opportunity for gain (or other return) compared with reasonably available alternatives.
The plan’s brokerage window is not a designated investment alternative, and the investments available within the window have not been prudently selected and are not monitored by any plan fiduciary.
Depending on the investment selected, a participant may experience diminished returns, higher fees, or greater investment risk through the brokerage window.
The participant should be presented with comparative hypothetical balances of the participant’s balance projected to age 70 based on different net returns of 4%, 6%, and 8%.
This bill is supported by Americans for Tax Reform.
Rep. Banks previously introduced the Protecting Americans’ Retirement Savings Act (PARSA), which would block ERISA plans from making dangerous new investments in companies controlled by or based iin our foreign adversaries and require the disclosure of existing investments in other foreign adversaries and sanctioned entities.
Rep. Banks is the Chairman of the House Anti-Woke Caucus.
