How Republicans are using antitrust to kill climate progress.

Sign up for the Slatest to get the most insightful analysis, criticism, and advice out there, delivered to your inbox daily. The leader of the Republican investigation, Rep. Jim Jordan, took credit for these departures, calling them a “huge win” for his probe and urging all U.S. businesses to “abandon the climate cartel.” The rapid dissolution of ESG pacts in the face of Republican legal pressure has raised concerns that years of private climate organizing may come undone under the threat of antitrust litigation, irrespective of its legal merits. “There is no theory of antitrust law that prevents private investors from working together to capture the risks associated with climate change,” wrote Rep. Jerry Nadler in a June 2024 rebuttal report, which claimed Republicans were bullying companies into abandoning ESG using a “sham” antitrust theory borrowed from a conservative think tank. Denise Hearn, a senior fellow at the Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment who has criticized the GOP’s antitrust push, says it is now up to courts to adjudicate these claims on a case-by-case basis: “Antitrust law is fact-specific, and the accusations over the course of two years have been vague and wide-reaching, lumping a huge diversity of financial institutions and nonprofit groups together under one banner.” How courts ultimately resolve these disputes could shape the future of U.S. climate organizing. “These companies are trying to do the right thing, but they don’t have much financial incentive to fight back against baseless attacks on ESG agreements, which rarely come with short-term financial upside.” As the Trump administration begins its broader push to roll back environmental protections, Republicans have already scored a major victory by decimating the private-sector coalitions that were once seen as a backstop for deregulatory efforts—in large part due to a novel antitrust theory that has yet to be upheld in court.