North Carolina State Treasurer Dale Folwell called for the resignation of BlackRock CEO Larry Fink over his focus on the environmental, social, and governance movement, also known as ESG.

According to a letter sent on Friday and provided to The Daily Wire, the Tar Heel State’s public retirement system invests over $14 billion through the asset management company in a variety of passive and active funds. Folwell asserted that “ideological pressure” from Fink could lead to the use of ESG ratings against state and local governments, while initiatives related to climate change and other causes imply that the firm is not solely focused on maximizing profits.

“As keeper of the public purse, my duty is to manage our investments to ensure that the best interests of those that teach, protect and serve, as well as of our retirees, are always paramount,” Folwell wrote. “Unfortunately, Larry Fink’s pursuit of a political agenda has gotten in the way of BlackRock’s same fiduciary duty. A focus on ESG is not a focus on returns and potentially could force us to violate our own fiduciary duty.”

The move from the state of North Carolina occurs one month after Bluebell Capital Management, a small hedge fund based in London, called for the ouster of Fink, arguing that his emphasis on ESG has “alienated clients and attracted an undesired level of negative publicity.”

BlackRock has taken “voting action on climate issues” against dozens of its portfolio companies, according to an investment stewardship report published two years ago. Folwell noted that Fink opposed the election of two board members at ExxonMobil in 2020 because of “insignificant progress” toward implementing renewable energy projects. The move, however, preceded record demand for fossil fuels that has made the sector one of the few to produce robust stock market returns over the past year.

“There is no blue money or red money at the treasurer’s office, only green,” Folwell continued. “BlackRock needs to be totally focused on returns for their clients, not on the political effort to ‘transform’ the economy to your vision of carbon zero. Fossil fuels will be the engine that drives the world’s economy for the foreseeable future. The only way that I can see BlackRock refocusing on its fiduciary duty to its clients is for a change at the top.”

Folwell is the first Republican state treasurer to call for the resignation of Fink. Officials in states such as South Carolina, Louisiana, Missouri, West Virginia, and Florida have divested billions from the asset management company, as well as other firms such as Vanguard and State Street. Lawmakers in the state of Texas subpoenaed BlackRock this week for documents related to the firm’s support of the ESG movement; a hearing with the three companies, as well as Institutional Shareholder Services, is scheduled for December 15.

When asked why he did not move to divest funds from BlackRock alongside other states, Folwell told The Daily Wire that the ouster of Fink would allow residents to “get the value that BlackRock index firms offer” without the executive’s “misguided focus on ESG.”

Skepticism of ESG from state officials and private funds has prompted asset management companies to amend their support of the movement. Vanguard severed ties with the Net Zero Asset Managers initiative, under which firms commit to moving portfolio companies toward eliminating net carbon emissions by 2050, while BlackRock announced that institutional clients will be able to vote their own shares rather than allow the company to act as a proxy.

Folwell, noting the existence of reforms at BlackRock permitting investors in certain pooled vehicles to “have some degree of control over their voting,” said in the letter that “the existence of the proxy voting program does not mitigate the need for a new direction at BlackRock.”

Actress Drew Barrymore said in a recent interview that she doesn’t buy Christmas presents for her two daughters with ex-husband Will Kopelman, Frankie (8) and Olive (10) — and she doesn’t intend to change that.

Barrymore told Entertainment Tonight’s Nischelle Turner, during an interview that was published Thursday, that she preferred to give her children new experiences and memories that they can keep for a lifetime rather than a toy they might lose interest in within a few days or weeks.

“I always take them on a trip every Christmas. I don’t get them presents, which I think at their ages they don’t love, but I say, ‘I think we’ll remember the place and the photos and the experience and that’s what I want to give you,'” the 47-year-old actress explained.

The “50 First Dates” alum went on to say that it wasn’t really about not ever buying things for the kids — but rather about making the Christmas holiday about the memories that they could share as a family.

“They get plenty of things throughout the year, so I’m not like some weird, strict, cold mom who’s like, ‘You don’t get any gifts!'” she said. “I just feel like a better gift would be a life memory. I’d rather invest [in that than in] a doll house or something. It all evens out and it’s fine.”

Barrymore admitted that she did break down and just buy presents one year — when pretty much everything was locked down and travel was impossible because of the COVID pandemic — and she said the results were less than stellar.

“I’m fine to skip this. This sucks,” she observed of the gift-centric experience, adding that another perk to giving experiences rather than physical presents was that it eliminated virtually all of the complaining about kids “not liking what they get.”

Another benefit, the “E.T.” actress said, was having a Christmas experience that brought the family together but still changed a bit every year — and not feeling as though she had to do the same things every year simply because they were “tradition.”

“[I try] to remember that one holiday won’t be probably the same as one 10 years from now, that your life can dramatically change, and new people and new traditions can come into it. I like looking at the holidays through a comedic, realistic lens of, we’re gonna have a lot of different holiday stories,” she added. “What one do you want to keep going and build as a tradition? Rather than, ‘This is my tradition and I’m stuck in it.'”