Big Oil Still Caught In ESG’s Web

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President Donald Trump recently lit up social media accusing major oil companies of not passing lower crude prices through to consumers fast enough.

The president’s critics were quick to respond with a tutorial on oil market mechanics: gas stations are independently owned, tanker deliveries take weeks, refineries are price-takers and federal investigations have never once found Big Oil guilty of price gouging in the entire history of the charge.

All of that is true. (RELATED: The Answer To America’s Food Security Woes)

But here is what his critics are missing: Trump’s instinct that the major oil companies are not producing what they could is correct. Not because of greed, and not because of price manipulation. Because of Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) policies.

The ESG movement spent the better part of a decade infiltrating the boardrooms of America’s largest energy companies. Asset managers like BlackRock, State Street and Vanguard, armed with proxy votes from millions of retirement accounts, pressured the majors into net-zero pledges, methane commitments and capital discipline frameworks that amount to a structural bias against production growth.

The executives running these companies are not villains. Many of them are trapped between market signals that say “drill” and boardroom pressure that says “restrain.” ESG........

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