Remove ESG considerations from ERISA

Attempted

Printed page 606 18. Department of Labor and Related Agencies

“Remove ESG considerations from ERISA.”

What has happened

Aug 14, 2026 Attempted
The Department of Labor's regulatory agenda carries RIN 1210-AC37, "Prudence and Loyalty in Selecting Plan Investments and Exercising Shareholder Rights", an economically significant rulemaking that "would revise the Department's regulation at 29 CFR 2550.404a-1 so that plan fiduciaries select investments and exercise shareholder rights based only on financial considerations relevant to the risk-adjusted economic value of a particular investment, and not to advance social causes." It is a dated, formal commitment with no proposed rule behind it: the timetable shows "Rulemaking 07/2026" and nothing had been published by 2026-08-31, so the 2022 rule remains in force.
- Introduction to the Unified Agenda of Federal Regulatory and Deregulatory Actions, 2026 (carries the Department of Labor's priority regulatory entries)
  Primary Executive branch Aug 14, 2026
Jan 15, 2026 Attempted
The House passed H.R. 2988, the Protecting Prudent Investment of Retirement Savings Act, 213-205, amending ERISA to specify how plan fiduciaries may treat pecuniary and non-pecuniary factors. It was received in the Senate on 2026-01-26 and referred to the HELP Committee, where it has stayed. Passage by one chamber is a concrete step that has changed nothing.
- H.R. 2988, Protecting Prudent Investment of Retirement Savings Act, as passed by the House — amends ERISA section 404 to specify the treatment of pecuniary and non-pecuniary factors
  Primary Congress Jan 15, 2026

What was searched, and what didn’t count as evidence

Merge question flagged for ticket 26. The Mandate states this ask three times in three pages — #1670 (p. 606, the section heading “Remove ESG considerations from ERISA”), #1671 (p. 607, “prohibit investing … on the basis of any factors that are unrelated to investor risks and returns”) and #1672 (p. 607, “return to the Trump Administration’s approach of permitting only the consideration of pecuniary factors”) — and one instrument, a final rule restoring the 2020 pecuniary-factors rule, would satisfy all three at once, which is §3b’s merge test. They are not merged here because #1670 reads as a section heading whose scope also covers the Thrift Savings Plan and proxy-voting asks on pages 608–609 (#1674 to #1678); folding #1671 and #1672 into it but not those would be arbitrary. All three are leveled identically on the same two instruments so that whichever way ticket 26 decides, no Status has to move.
RIN 1210-AC37 read at reginfo.gov/public/do/eAgendaViewRule?pubId=202510&RIN=1210-AC37; its statement of need cites Executive Order 14219 and Executive Order 14366 (Protecting American Investors From Foreign-Owned and Politically-Motivated Proxy Advisors, 2025-12-11).
What an agenda entry is worth is an open clause: Chapter 10 read a formal, dated agenda commitment with no NPRM behind it as attempted, and that reading is with ticket 26 rather than settled in §3b. This item does not turn on it — the House passage independently supports attempted.