Michigan for five minutes thank you so much the pretense of today's hearing um is that certain risks don't matter for companies or the families and retirees who invested uh in them and apparently today a company social or Governor uh practices like whether they have effective policies for preventing and add addressing sexual harassment don't matter however when the FTC chair was here before this committee was obvious said Everyone Cared uh Treasurer to effectively carry out their responsibilities what types of information risks or opportunities must feries consider and I'm so sorry if you've been asked this question but I think it's important to repeat why these uh factors are important yeah thank you for the opportunity let me first start by explaining why we need new data about 50 years ago in 1975 uh the S&P 500 had about 177% of the Val in the S&P 500 in intangible assets today that number is about 90% so nature of value of companies have changed 50 years ago you could look at a car company in Michigan and say well how many employees do they have how many cars they producing a year how many factories they have you could look at these numbers but today Apple the value of Apple is not a trillion dollars because of the number of iPhones they're producing it's based on their reputation on their intellectual property and these are things that are subject to additional new risks you know reputational risk litigation risks um these are things that we need to have this information for because we're making lots of investments in these companies and we want to know we don't to put our uh our clients money in Investments at risk no you answer my next question I mean the anti ESG movement is funded by the fossil fuel industry uh which is poisoning my community uh uh figures like uh Leonard Leo and I I think Peter Theo who are all seeking to line their pockets I mean to protect their profits uh by opening new front uh a new front in the what many are calling the culture War right the issue must you know might be fabricated but the stakes are truly really real for for people not only within the company but for so many of the folks that are impacted the retirement savings for hardworking families and Public Funding are all on the line after Texas passed their anti-g uh legislation in 2021 for example disrupting the municipal bond market look it up public borrowing costs increased by roughly $400 million after they passed the anti-g legislation Indiana's budget office has estimated that forcing Pension funds to divest from firms or funds that use ESG factors could reduce returns by $6.7 billion again documented Treasurer can you discuss how attempts to prevent the use of environmental social and governance uh factors can cost the public and the retirees yeah so let's say there was talk earlier about these small mom and pop companies out there what we're talking about today is our large publicly traded companies the reason we have disclosures because in the past they didn't disclose things and defrauded investors now we have risks for us investors we need to know what they are if there's an individual small company providing a widget for a large international company we should have access to know is that widget made with child labor is it made with slave labor because that presents a real risk to our investment company like apple I mean just think all those people who have iPhones the number of people if they found out those iPhones were being made by slave weager labor in China by children there were people who would switch from iPhones to Androids that'd be a big risk to the company that's why this access to information information for reputational risk and litigation risk look it's very obvious it's about shielding them from accountability just this just be honest this is shielding them from accountability if a company is facing significant climate related risks uh investors need to know I mean period why not if you're an insurance company be honest I I don't know why we're trying to help them hide uh this information it's ridiculous treasur last question can you discuss some of the issues I mean the climate risks always come to mind for uh folks but for climate risk to executive compensation that shareholders Pro proposals can force companies to disclose and why those issues would be of interest to investors I know it's clear but but I think folks I love how you give examples I think the American people need to understand implementation wise why this matters there was talk about materiality so not every company is is impacted by climate risk as others if you're an insurance company uh insuring homes along the Florida coast as an investor we want to know that risk if you're in agriculture and there are droughts or floods coming into your farm areas we need to know your exposure there because those are are real risks out there yeah thank you so much and I yield gentle ladies uh has yielded back uh with that the gentleman from Pennsylvania Mr Muer is