A frequent refrain of Joe Biden and other liberal climate denialists — those who refuse to act on scientists’ warnings of a shrinking window of time for aggressive government climate action, whatever their public stance on “the science” — is that the private sector will save us, voluntarily divesting from fossil fuels out of both moral and business concerns. It’s a dubious proposal, but one even Biden’s political foes have bought into — and are now working to prevent from happening.

Not long ago, the Center for Media and Democracy’s Alex Kotch reported on an ominous development in the fight to prevent climate disaster. Emails show that the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), the Koch brothers’ venture that writes legislation for state and federal government on behalf of corporate interests, approved a new model bill to let state governments blackball financial institutions that divest from fossil fuels. It’s a response to mounting headlines of firms announcing or pledging such divestment after pressure from consumers and activists.

“This model proposes a strategy in which states use their collective economic purchasing power to counter the rise of politically motivated and discriminatory investing practices,” wrote Jason Isaac from the Texas Public Policy Foundation, another oligarch-funded venture that works as a state-level ALEC subsidiary.