A private climate-rating system is becoming embedded in America’s housing market, using scores based on speculative assumptions rather than observed history and raising questions about whether the system is being used to artificially suppress property values in targeted markets, a new report is asserting.
The just-released report “Climate Score Scam, How Wall Street is Quietly Undermining American Home Values” is a collaboration between American Stewards of Liberty member and Realtor Stephanie Cross, American Energy Institute senior fellow Molly Vogt, and Consumers’ Research. The authors say an immediate congressional investigation into the scores is warranted.
Specifically, the researchers report that millions of Americans searching for homes on Zillow, Realtor.com, Homes.com, and Redfin now see climate-risk scores produced by a private company called First Street. These ratings are not government determinations, the authors state, but rely on proprietary predictive models and appear alongside official information, making them part of many buyers’ first impression of a property.
Cross first exposed the scores after hearing what she called shocking stories from prospective homebuyers. The scores often conflict with FEMA flood maps, categorizing properties as high flood risk when FEMA labels those same properties as minimal flood risk. There is also no formal independent dispute process, the report asserts, and homeowners have little-to-no recourse when they believe a score is inaccurate.
According to the report, these scores are embedded across the broader digital real estate ecosystem, including platforms operated by CoStar Group, raising concerns that the scores not only influence buyer behavior but also insurance requirements, days on the market, and property values.
And that’s not all: The authors found that the world’s three largest asset management firms— BlackRock, Vanguard, and State Street—which collectively oversee more than $30 trillion and are heavily invested in globalist climate planning, have captured significant holdings and influence in the parent companies of the nation’s largest real estate listing platforms.
“These same firms have actively promoted Net-Zero climate and ESG governance frameworks across multiple industries and have exercised proxy voting power to advance climate-related corporate policies that exceed U.S. legal requirements,” the report states. “If private climate modeling is shaping U.S. home values without regulatory accountability, and the same institutional investors promoting Net-Zero and ESG agendas hold significant influence over the platforms distributing these scores, Congress must investigate immediately.”
Case study
The report argues that the scores give a private company outsized influence over how homes are perceived in the marketplace, and it produced a serious case study to back up its claims: a Tennessee property valued at approximately $6.2 million that reportedly carried a FEMA Zone X designation indicating minimal flood risk but received a 9-of-10 flood score from First Street.
“After the score appeared on listing platforms, showings declined, buyer interest collapsed, time on market increased; the seller was forced to reduce price; and the score could not be effectively challenged,” the report states.
The question is, what influence over the scores do BlackRock, Vanguard, and State Street have, if any, given the Big Three’s own heavily invested stakes in climate modeling, the authors ask.
Consumers’ Research has already urged several federal agencies to investigate First Street’s climate-scoring practices. One question is who funds First Street, and that’s something that raises questions about the Big Three’s influence. That, in turn, requires a look into First Street’s own inner workings.
“As a privately funded entity, transparency into First Street’s investor influence, incentives, and governance remains limited,” the report states. “Key unanswered questions include: Who ultimately funds and benefits from the expansion of these models? How are long-term projections validated against real-world outcomes? What safeguards exist when scores conflict with federally recognized data? Why do homeowners have no meaningful path to challenge them?”
The report urges investigators to follow the incentives.
“First Street is backed by private capital and built to scale climate-risk modeling across financial markets,” the report states. “The largest institutional investors promoting similar climate frameworks hold significant stakes in the platforms distributing these scores. When investment incentives and distribution power align, they do not just inform the market; they shape outcomes.”
Then there’s the nature of the Big Three themselves.
“BlackRock, Vanguard, and State Street are separate firms,” the report states. “But they frequently advance aligned positions on ESG standards, climate risk disclosure, and Net-Zero governance. Because they are often the largest shareholders in publicly traded companies, when they vote in alignment, they can influence board composition, corporate strategy, and disclosure practices across entire industries.”
What’s more, the report observes, BlackRock has stated it may vote against directors at companies that fail to align with climate-risk and net-zero transition expectations; Vanguard identifies climate risk as a material financial issue and supports board oversight and disclosure of climate-related risks; and State Street uses proxy voting and engagement to promote climate-related disclosures and alignment with global reporting frameworks.
“These are not theoretical positions,” the report states. “They have been applied through proxy voting and shareholder engagement across multiple sectors. … The pattern is clear: The Big Three are not passive capital holders. They actively use shareholder voting power to shape corporate behavior and advance climate governance frameworks across the U.S. economy. That these same firms hold significant ownership stakes in the real estate platforms now integrating private climate-risk scores raises serious questions about whether similar governance influence is shaping how property is evaluated and presented to consumers.”
Flawed
Then there are the climate scores themselves, which calculate past, present, and future climate exposure for individual properties across the United States and then distribute the data to consumers, businesses, financial institutions, and government entities.
“This represents a fundamental shift in how property risk is evaluated,” the report states. “Rather than relying on historical data and federally regulated standards, these models project future climate scenarios and embed those projections into present-day market signals. In practice, forward-looking climate assumptions are introduced into current property valuations, private models are integrated into platforms used by tens of millions of buyers, the projections influence pricing, lending, insurance, and investment decisions, without regulatory oversight.”
The Heartland Institute has also documented serious methodological and ideological concerns with private climate scoring models like First Street’s. Heartland’s research highlights that, because private climate models embed speculative assumptions about future climate trajectories that are not grounded in observable historical data, FEMA flood maps remain the appropriate, legally recognized standard for property risk determination, and private models that contradict them should not carry equivalent weight.
“The widespread integration of ideologically driven climate models into financial and real estate markets represents a form of regulatory capture by private actors pursuing climate policy goals outside the democratic process,” the report asserts.
The immediate need, the authors urged, is for homeowners, lenders, and insurers to have transparent, empirically grounded risk information, not politically motivated modeling.
“Taken together, these concerns from consumer advocates and independent policy researchers reinforce the case that private climate scoring in the housing market warrants urgent scrutiny from Congress and federal regulators,” the report states.
As such, the report calls on Congress to immediately investigate the integration of private climate risk scores into real estate platforms, determine whether the models are operating lawfully, and decide whether they suppress property values without adequate oversight.
The report also urges mandating public disclosure of all agreements between real estate platforms and third-party data providers, including financial terms, data usage rights, and governance considerations, while real estate platforms must clearly distinguish, for every consumer, between federally regulated determinations (such as FEMA flood maps) and private, predictive climate modeling.
“Any climate-risk score appearing on a real estate listing must include a formal, accessible, and timely dispute process,” the report urges. “Homeowners whose property values are affected by inaccurate private scores must have a meaningful path to challenge them.”
Lawmakers should also examine whether institutional shareholder influence is shaping housing-market information in ways that disadvantage homeowners and advance climate-governance agendas beyond U.S. legal requirements, the report urged.
Finally, the report asks Congress to examine whether institutional power is not only buying into housing markets but also shaping how residential property is perceived and valued through private climate-scoring systems embedded in dominant listing platforms.
Writing for AEI in July, Vogt called attention to what’s at stake.
“For most Americans, our home is our largest financial asset,” Vogt wrote. “It represents decades of hard work, sacrifice, and hope. It is where families raise children, retire, and build generational wealth. The American Dream has long been rooted in the simple belief that if you work hard, invest wisely, and pay off your home, you can leave your children something better than what you had.”
But what if the value of that dream is being quietly influenced by private companies using globalist-aligned, apocalyptic, forward-looking climate models that homeowners never voted for, never agreed to, cannot meaningfully appeal, and may never even know are shaping buyer perceptions of their homes? Vogt asked.
“That is a question every American homeowner should be asking,” she wrote.
