What fresh hell is this?

“The influential rightwing lobby group the American Legislative Exchange Council (Alec) is driving a surge in new state laws to block boycotts of the oil industry. The group’s strategy, which aims to protect large oil firms and other conservative-friendly industries, is modelled on legislation to punish divestment from Israel.

Since the beginning of the year, state legislatures in West Virginia, Oklahoma and Indiana have introduced a version of a law drafted by Alec, called the Energy Discrimination Elimination Act, to shield big oil from share selloffs and other measures intended to protest the fossil fuel industry’s role in the climate crisis. A dozen other states have publicly supported the intent of the legislation.

Texas has already begun compiling a list of companies to target for refusing to do business with the oil industry after the state passed a version of the law last year. Top of the list is the world’s largest asset manager, BlackRock.”

“In January, Texas Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick asked the state comptroller to put BlackRock, which manages an estimated $10 trillion worth of assets, at the top of its list of blacklisted companies because he said its pledge to work toward decarbonising the energy sector “will destroy the oil and gas industry and destabilize the economy worldwide”.

TL;DR A right wing lobbying group known as ALEC (American Legislative Exchange Council) is pushing to have laws, notably the ENERGY DISCRIMINATION ELIMINATION ACT, passed in U.S. states to block companies from boycotting the oil industry because of their effects on climate change.

Sauces:
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/feb/08/rightwing-lobby-alec-blacklist-companies-boycott-oil-industry
https://web.archive.org/web/20211204022222/https://www.alec.org/model-policy/energy-discrimination-elimination-act-2/