MADISON, Wis. — In a new op-ed for the Wisconsin Examiner, Christopher Cox calls out Bryan Steil for bending the knee to corporate interests and selling out communities across Wisconsin. Bryan Steil is all bark and no bite—he pretends he would fight to protect Social Security and Medicare but refuses to stand up to his own party to keep Wisconsinites’ benefits safe. Instead of finding a real solution to protect Wisconsin retirees, Steil introduced a bill that gives large corporations responsible for contaminating our drinking water and worsening the opioid epidemic free rein to continue wreaking havoc on our state.

Veiled as an attempt to “protect retirement investments,” Bryan Steil’s legislation is nothing more than a wolf in sheep’s clothing—removing federal requirements that companies listen to their shareholders, allowing the worst side effects of corporate greed like PFAS pollution and fueling the opioid crisis to go unchecked. Rather than standing up for Wisconsin communities, Bryan Steil is selling out Wisconsinites to let corporations run wild. This November, Wisconsinites in the 1st Congressional District will gladly show him and his corporate interests the door. 

Wisconsin Examiner: A Step Backward for Wisconsin on Holding Companies Accountable
By: Christopher Cox

Congressman Bryan Steil is working to limit investors’ ability to police their companies. Whether the problem is opioid addiction, climate pollution or toxic drinking water, blocking investors from addressing these issues ultimately hurts Wisconsin communities. Yet legislation introduced by Congressman Steil, the 1st District Republican from Janesville, would hobble investors’ ability to drive responsible corporate behavior.

The bill, scheduled for a hearing Tuesday, would eliminate the federal requirement that shareholders’ proposals on such issues be presented for fellow investors to vote on in a company’s annual meeting announcement called the proxy statement. Shareholder resolutions offer one of the most effective tools investors have to hold companies and their boards of directors accountable for activities that are risky to both investors’ assets and our communities.  

Take, for example, the opioid crisis. More than 10,000 individuals in our state have died from an opioid overdose since the year 2000. The opioid epidemic has devastated Wisconsin families and communities across all races and many age groups in both rural and urban communities.

Pharmaceutical companies, drug middlemen and retail chains profit from opioid medications. However, with the harm that opioids pose to our communities, the corporate suppliers of opioids face significant risks of lawsuits and ethical scandals. From 2017-2023, a group of 67 investors, including my organization, filed more than 100 shareholder proposals directed at 32 of these companies. The proposals filed by members of Investors for Opioid and Pharmaceutical Accountability sought to increase the oversight by boards of directors to independently investigate and manage opioid-related risks.

Climate risk shareholder proposals focus on a company’s pollution reduction goals and other company plans to adapt their business to a clean energy economy. 

Since 1950, our state’s average temperatures have already risen by at least two degrees Fahrenheit. Ice cover on the Great Lakes is forming later and melting sooner. More frequent heavy rainstorms are causing flooding and waterlogged agricultural soils. The extreme weather anticipated in future decades poses grave danger to public health in cities and to harvests in farmland communities. 

During the 2024 annual meeting season over 200 climate-related proposals went to vote at companies across the U.S., signaling just how important investors consider the issue to be in terms of risks to both the companies in which they have invested and our collective future.

Finally, investors have sought to discourage companies from contributing to toxic chemical contamination of drinking water. Poly- and perfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) — so-called “forever chemicals” — have been linked to increased risk of some cancers, lower birth weights, harm to immune and reproductive systems and altered hormone regulation. More than 50 cities in Wisconsin have discovered PFAS in their drinking water, including Superior, La Crosse, Eau Claire, Wausau, Madison and Milwaukee. Some areas in our state are currently forced to use bottled water due to PFAS contamination. 

The origins of the PFAS problem lie in boardrooms where corporate managers made irresponsible decisions to continue producing these chemicals while ignoring or downplaying the related risks. Shareholder proposals have attempted to make companies act more responsibly in how they manage these chemicals. For instance, in 2006, DuPont investors brought a shareholder proposal asking DuPont to report on the feasibility of phasing out the use of a PFAS chemical in the production of Teflon and other products. As a result of shareholder proposals at McDonald’s in 2020 and Proctor & Gamble in 2024, these companies agreed to manage and reduce the use of PFAS in their products. 

Yet Congressman Steil’s legislation would eliminate the right of shareholders to have such proposals appear on corporate proxy statements — preventing shareholders from policing their own companies for risks to both their investments and our communities. 

Far from protecting investments, Congressman Steil’s proposed legislation would remove a cost-effective tool for maintaining investment value and improving the lives of Wisconsinites.