Ron DeSantis is using government to stamp out ideas he doesn’t like. He doesn’t like investing public money into corporations that take into account climate change and diversity. Such standards are called ESG, or “environmental, social, and governance” standards.

So today he signed a law to block investment in funds with ESG standards. Anyone who cares about such things as climate change, he believes, is “WOKE.”

Florida is one of the most environmentally threatened states in the nation, but DeFascist opposes corporations that care about climate change.

Just last fall, the west coast of Florida was devastated by Hurricane Ian, a category 5 that caused more than $100 billion in damages, in addition to more than 150 deaths.

But DeSantis doesn’t want the state to invest its funds in corporations that want to act against climate change. Maybe he should take a public pledge not to ask for federal relief money when the next big hurricane hits Florida. Put the state’s money where his mouth is instead of sending us the bill for his bull.

The Orlando Sentinel reported:

Gov. Ron DeSantis signed into law Tuesday a bill banning state agencies and local governments from taking climate change and diversity factors into account when investing money.

The Government and Corporate Activism Act targets ESG, or environmental, social and governance standards, derided as “woke” by DeSantis and the GOP-led Legislature in their culture war battles.

Democrats and some business owners say the law could cost the state money and impact municipal bonds.

At an event in Jacksonville, DeSantis called ESG “an attempt by elites to impose ideology through business institutions, financial institutions, and our economy writ large. … They want to use economic power to impose this agenda on our society. And we think in Florida, that is not going to fly here.”

The bill, which passed both the House and Senate along mostly party lines, also bans banks from applying a “social credit score” and denying services to people based on political opinions or speech, which is defined to include religion, ownership of a firearm, being involved in “fuel-based energy, timber, mining, or agriculture,” or supporting the “combating illegal immigration.”

“You’ll actually hear from some folks today who’ve kind of been caught up in this morass where they’ve been discriminated against by financial institutions, just basically because they’re not toeing the ideological line,” DeSantis said.

DeSantis introduced Laura DiBenedetto, the owner of firearms store Sovereign Ammo in Flagler County, who quoted from George Orwell’s 1984 and claimed her industry was “already under totalitarian rule” because they were denied funding by lenders “because our profession didn’t pass muster for an acceptable business.”

The state pension fund has already started pulling out of investments in companies with ESG practices, including $2 billion from BlackRock, the largest asset-management firm in the world. The money was dispersed to other asset managers that also support ESG, however.