Janet Dudding, a certified public accountant who is seeking to unseat Hegar, said his efforts are penalizing the industry. Hegar is up for re-election in the fall and Dudding is seeking the Democratic nomination for the race.
“Texas is a world leader in energy and a national leader in wind and renewable energy,” Dudding said. “No institution should be punished for investing in renewable energy.”
A spokesman for Hegar said the first round of letters was sent to finance firms that were identified as having an “umbrella-like” energy policy that indicated they may be boycotting fossil fuels. The second round focused on companies with investment offerings that appeared to withdraw from fossil fuels, he said.
The letter demands companies answer more than a dozen questions related to their environmental pledges and energy investment policies. Some firms are being asked to state whether they sell securities such as mutual funds or ETFs that carry restrictions on energy investments, and to name the securities and their ticker symbols.
In an interview last month, Hegar said he wants finance firms to be transparent in their stance on fossil fuels. Many Wall Street firms have two narratives on energy investment depending on whether they’re trying to land business with the oil and gas industry, he said.
Even so, Texas officials are making clear that their effort will have its own repercussions.
“What it means practically is Texas doesn’t want to do business from a policy standpoint with those companies,” Hegar said in a Bloomberg Quicktake interview Friday.
-With assistance from Danielle Moran.
This article was provided by Bloomberg News.