{"id":151375,"date":"2026-02-05T00:39:09","date_gmt":"2026-02-05T00:39:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/151375\/"},"modified":"2026-02-05T00:39:09","modified_gmt":"2026-02-05T00:39:09","slug":"texas-fossil-fuel-boycott-law-ruled-unconstitutional","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/151375\/","title":{"rendered":"Texas fossil fuel boycott law ruled unconstitutional"},"content":{"rendered":"

Audio recording is automated for accessibility. Humans wrote and edited the story. See our AI policy<\/a>, and give us feedback<\/a>.<\/p>\n

A federal district judge on Wednesday declared a 2021 law restricting state investments in companies boycotting the fossil fuel industry unconstitutional, calling it \u201cfacially overbroad\u201d and citing First and Fourteenth Amendment concerns.<\/p>\n

Legislators passed Senate Bill 13<\/a> as a way of discouraging divestment from oil and gas companies, as financial figureheads at the time had signaled<\/a> they intended to make climate change initiatives a larger factor in their investment considerations. The law requires the comptroller\u2019s office to maintain a list of financial firms that refuse, terminate or penalize business with a fossil fuel company \u201cwithout ordinary business purpose.\u201d SB 13 is commonly referred to as an \u201canti-ESG\u201d law, which stands for \u201cenvironmental, social and governance.\u201d<\/p>\n

U.S. District Judge Alan Albright delivered the summary judgment, and affirmed in the 12-page order that the way SB 13 determined what constituted boycotting a company was too broad and undermined free speech protections of firms affected.<\/p>\n

\u201cSB 13\u2019s \u2018boycotting\u2019 definition is comprised of three clauses, all of which are undefined and not susceptible to objective measurement or determination,\u201d Albright wrote in the ruling.<\/p>\n

Albright also wrote that the law had already led to \u201cdiscriminatory enforcement\u201d of its provisions. After SB 13 was passed, huge state investment funds, including the Teacher Retirement System of Texas and the Texas Permanent School Fund, divested<\/a> billions from firms.<\/p>\n

The Texas Comptroller\u2019s office maintains a publicly available list<\/a> of more than 300 companies they identified as boycotting energy companies, which was last updated in June. During that update, BlackRock, one of the largest international investment firms, was removed<\/a> from the list after it excused itself from two major climate initiatives. Then-state Comptroller Glenn Hegar lauded the move as a \u201cmeaningful victory\u201d for Texas\u2019 economy.<\/p>\n

The American Sustainable Business Coalition filed<\/a> the suit in 2024 against Hegar and Attorney General Ken Paxton<\/a>, alleging five different counts of free speech and due process violations. The ASBC subsequently moved for summary judgment on three of those claims in January 2025, and Albright ruled in their favor for all three Wednesday.<\/p>\n

The Texas Comptroller\u2019s Office and Attorney General\u2019s Office did not immediately respond to a request for comment about the ruling. <\/p>\n

Supporters of the suit praised the judge\u2019s ruling as a win for state workers. Tim Hill, president of the Alliance for Prosperity and a Secure Retirement, called the ruling a victory for current and future retirees in the state.<\/p>\n

\u201cJudge Albright\u2019s thoughtful ruling will help keep politics out of public finance,\u201d Hill said in a statement. \u201cWe are gratified that today\u2019s ruling puts a stop to the unconstitutional effort in Texas to include non-fiduciary issues when deciding how to invest public pension funds.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Audio recording is automated for accessibility. Humans wrote and edited the story. See our AI policy, and give…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":151376,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[6332,1967,62821,62822,27,29,28],"class_list":["post-151375","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-texas","tag-glenn-hegar","tag-ken-paxton","tag-permanent-school-fund","tag-teacher-retirement-system","tag-texas","tag-texas-headlines","tag-texas-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/151375","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=151375"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/151375\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/151376"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=151375"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=151375"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=151375"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}