A grassroots victory against Wall Street and green tyranny

When Americans come together, we can make a difference. The latest example is the work by many Blaze News subscribers in putting pressure to stop the proposed listing of natural asset companies on the New York Stock Exchange.

The NYSE had petitioned the Securities and Exchange Commission to allow for the listing of natural asset companies. NACs are a “new” company type concocted by an environmental group. They focus on raising money to buy the rights to manage natural resources. But instead of making those resources more productive, the environmentalists behind the NAC scheme wanted to take them out of productive use to protect, conserve, restore, and preserve these natural “assets” based on whatever their own definitions of those activities happen to be.

This is a great reminder that we are not helpless if people are willing to take the time to use their free speech.

The NAC boosters sought to use the public markets to raise money for this endeavor through New York Stock Exchange listings. This would mean that any money in the public market, whether it came from a pension fund or another government’s sovereign wealth fund, could fund and effectively control America’s natural resources. NACs threatened our food and water supplies, energy development, tourism, and way of life.

But we fought back. With leadership from Utah state Treasurer Marlo Oaks and Glenn Beck, who featured this topic extensively on his programs, along with Utah Attorney General Sean Reyes, who led a total of 25 states in expressing opposition, an effective grassroots backlash ensued. I provided a template based on my own comments to the SEC that hundreds of readers contacted me to obtain and send to the SEC and their state representatives.

This backlash was swift, large, and loud. On Wednesday, one day before the SEC’s extended comments period expired, the NYSE notified the SEC it would withdraw the proposed rule change.

This is critically important. These are big, powerful organizations, and a coordinated, grassroots effort made enough impact to stop something horrible from happening. We so often feel helpless, but this is a great reminder that we are not helpless if people are willing to take the time to use their free speech.

While we take our victory lap — which we should do! — we should note that more work must be done.

The NYSE’s decision not to list natural asset companies is a big step. That does not mean, however, that these companies can’t raise money elsewhere in the private markets. They could still approach sovereign wealth funds, pension funds, and others to give them money. So our next battle is to send our comments to members of Congress, asking them to make NACs illegal. We need them to protect our land and other natural resources from financialization and consolidation by bad actors.

Also, we need to keep our eyes open because, like so many other power-grabs, the NAC will likely return at some point, perhaps under different branding.

Other critical issues require grassroots resistance. Dealing with the border crisis and the illegal invasion of our country must be a top priority. So is fighting the Corporate Transparency Act’s anti-small business “beneficial ownership information” rule and the Department of Labor’s anti-gig work and anti-independent contractor rule that Glenn Beck and I spoke about recently.

If you want to join my newsletter so I can provide you with more updates and templates on these issues as we work together to defeat them, please do so at CarolRoth.com/News.

Take a moment to appreciate that the grassroots efforts worked and that pressuring and shaming elected officials can be done. Then, let’s get back to work.