House Republicans fail to override Biden’s 1st presidential veto

The Republican-led House failed on Thursday to override President Joe Biden’s veto of a answer that will have avoided retirement fund managers from accounting for positive social elements when making funding selections.

The vote was once 219-200 in want of overcoming the veto, however a two-thirds majority vote is wanted.

The House to start with handed H.J. Res. 30 on Feb. 28 with the enhance of all Republicans and one Democrat, Rep. Jared Golden of Maine. It took at the factor of environmental, social and governance (ESG), particularly whether or not retirement fund managers lined beneath federal regulation might come with that technique of their calculus.

ESG — categorized through critics as “woke capitalism” — has grow to be a significant goal through conservatives who say it’s unfair to positive corporations, together with within the oil and gasoline business, and may also be unhealthy for traders. Supporters of the coverage say it guides them to spend money on problems they imagine lend a hand society and displays converting tendencies.

Following Biden’s veto on Monday, the primary of his presidency, House Republicans took up the problem once more. House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, R-La., mentioned his convention would proceed to battle in opposition to ESG.

“House Republicans will keep fighting to overturn this rule allowing ESG investing and to make sure Americans are getting the best retirement they can, not the most woke,” the chief wrote in his weekly flooring lookout.

But the vote to override Biden’s veto — the House GOP’s first try to achieve this within the new Congress — was once at all times not going to be triumphant. The measure wanted two-thirds of the decrease chamber’s enhance to advance to the Senate, the place it could additionally want a two-thirds majority vote.

While there’s a slender Republican majority within the House, the GOP is within the minority within the Senate.

Legislative motion at the ESG factor got here after a Labor Department rule beneath Biden took impact firstly of February permitting retirement fund managers to imagine ESG elements. But it is a matter Republicans in Congress oppose as a result of they are saying it’s incorrect to imagine non-financial variables, like local weather trade.

House Republicans temporarily offered a answer to block the Biden management’s rule, which received enough enhance in each chambers of Congress. After H.J. Res. 30 handed the House, it handed the Senate on March 1 with the bipartisan enhance of Democratic Sens. Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Jon Tester of Montana.

Biden vetoed the measure on Monday, pronouncing then that the Department of Labor’s rule “protects the hard-earned life savings and pensions of tens of millions of workers and retirees across the country.”

ABC News’ Lauren Peller contributed to this record.