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By Rupert Darwall ~

The collapse of Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) occurred just days after Congress passed the Braun-Barr resolution, which overturns the Biden administration’s “Prudence and Loyalty” rule and its encouragement of environmental, social, and governance (ESG) investing by pension managers under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA). The timing could hardly be more instructive. The Prudence and Loyalty rule, the White House had recently argued in its defense, “reflects what successful marketplace investors already know – there is an extensive body of evidence that environmental, social, and governance factors can have material impacts on certain markets, industries, and companies.”

How true. SVB’s bankruptcy shows that focusing on ESG factors can indeed be material to investment performance, but not in the way that the Biden administration believes.

SVB reeked of ESG. “SVB’s Executive Committee, chaired by CEO Greg Becker, is responsible for oversight of…