By Marlo Oaks
Article Source
Ideological criteria will now influence the credit ratings of state and local governments, thanks to S&P Global Ratings. In addition to rating governments on meaningful financial criteria, in March the biggest of the top three credit-rating firms began to apply an environmental, social and governance, or ESG, rating system. But Utah isn’t about to submit to these subjective standards. State officials, including myself, recently wrote a letter to S&P objecting to the ESG indicators and ratings it has assigned to Utah and calling for the company to withdraw them.