June, 08 2022, 05:11pm EDT
New Report Reveals California Pensions Calpers, Calstrs Vote No on Big Oil Shareholder Climate Resolutions
The retirement systems' failed shareholder engagement efforts with fossil fuel companies has cost their members $11.9 billion in returns.
WASHINGTON
A report released today from Fossil Free California reveals that California's public pensions voted to oppose climate action at major fossil fuel companies and financiers during the 2022 Annual General Meeting season. This expose comes two weeks ahead of an Assembly Committee hearing on SB 1173, a bill that would require the funds to divest from fossil fuels, that was passed only two weeks ago by the California Senate.
The California Public Employees' Retirement System (CalPERS) and the California State Teachers' Retirement System (CalSTRS) are the largest fossil fuel financiers among the top pension funds in the country. While the funds claim to engage with the fossil fuel industry as stakeholders to encourage companies to mitigate climate change, this analysis reveals that CalPERS and CalSTRS voted this year to oppose shareholder proposals at fossil fuel companies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, cease exploration activity, and transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy.
"This latest report today shows that CalPERS and CalSTRS misled us--their members--by voting against climate resolutions, despite claiming their engagement with fossil fuel companies will help bring about needed change," said Charles Toombs, CFA President. "Studies have already shown a failure to divest in fossil fuels in the last decade cost us an estimated $11.9 billion in returns. The systems lost us money and are actively supporting companies opposed to our present and future needs to combat ecological changes and support environmental justice. It's long past time for lawmakers to do what these retirement pensions cannot: protect our future investments and pass Senate Bill 1173 this year to start the process of divesting from fossil fuels."
CalPERS and CalSTRS also wildly exaggerated the cost of divestment to the Senate Appropriations Committee last month, claiming figures as high as $100 million when their own consulting firm, Wilshire and Associates, has shown that the transaction cost associated with selling assets is "considered negligible."
Furthermore, the funds' highest profile shareholder action--replacing 3 of 12 ExxonMobil board members--changes to Exxon's board have not resulted in any meaningful progress to address climate change. Despite claiming "successful" engagement by CalSTRS and CalPERS, ExxonMobil, like the fossil fuel and banking industries in general, persists in climate-wrecking behavior which puts California public pensioners at financial and climate risk.
The full report can be found here.
The chart here details NO votes on climate proposals from CalPERS and CalSTRS at five major fossil fuel companies.
QUOTE SHEET
"It is with supreme disappointment that I have watched my former colleagues at CALSTRS and CALPERS ignore the growing financial, geopolitical and climate risks that now converge and have eliminated any basis for investing in the oil and gas sector," said Tom Sanzillo, Director of Financial Analysis, Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis. "They know better and perhaps the voice of the California legislature can remind them of their fiduciary duty. Divestment will serve to defend the funds against the loss of value from competitive market forces and to stand against the worst excesses of the industry we are seeing in the Ukraine."
"The fact that CalSTRS and CalPERS are actively voting against any climate policy WITHIN fossil fuel companies should make it clear to everyone that these oil companies and those who support them will never take the adequate steps to prevent total climate catastrophe," said Raven Fonseca Jensen (18), Campaign Coordinator, Youth vs. Apocalypse. "These companies' only interest is profit, and they will always choose that over human life. We need a complete break with the fossil fuel industry if we want to see any kind of climate justice."
"The climate crisis is the gravest trouble that humans have ever wandered into--and we'll only get out of it if we have the courage to take on those whose lies, denial, and vested interest stand in the way of change," said Bill McKibben, Founder, Third Act. "CalPERS and CalSTRS should never have helped the oil companies defeat climate action--but then, they should long since have ended their involvement with them at all."
"The coalition's report confirms what environmental advocates across the state have been loudly exclaiming for decades: it's past time that California public agencies stop investing money in fossil fuel companies," said Brandon Dawson, director of Sierra Club California. "Despite CalPERS and CalSTRS's best efforts at stakeholder engagement, polluting industries like oil and gas have consistently refused to take necessary actions towards addressing their emissions. We must divest from them, and continue to hold these industries responsible for their role in harming California's air quality, environment, and communities."
"Divestment from fossil fuels companies is an investment in our future. Pension funds must live up to their fiduciary duty, and protect pensioners and climate alike, by wielding their institutional investor power for climate resolutions at banks' shareholder meetings. Yet CalPERS & CalSTRS voted against all climate resolutions at all big banks and major fossil fuel companies," said Amy Gray, Senior Climate Finance Strategist at Stand.earth. "CalPERS and CalSTRS are hiding behind the fool's errand of shareholder engagement with fossil fuel companies while talking a big game about engaging on climate. They are not only actively voting against climate, they continually obstruct climate action while communities experience devastating drought and wildfires. It's morally reprehensible."
"I do NOT want my pension dollars or my tax dollars invested in climate destruction fossil fuels. Our money should be invested in forward thinking green energy and climate restoration innovation," said Carol Van Sant, CalSTRS member, 1000 Grandmothers for Future Generations.
Since 2014 CalSTRS has been touting the effectiveness of engaging with fossil fuel companies as opposed to their beneficiaries' requests that they divest. So much for engagement! BP, Chevron, Eni, Equinor, ExxonMobil, Repsol, Shell, and TotalEnergies are involved in over 200 expansion projects on track for approval from 2022 through 2025. Engaging with fossil fuel companies in a lost cause. To quote UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres: Investing in new fossil fuels infrastructure is moral and economic madness," said Jane Vosburg, CalSTRS beneficiary and Fossil Free California President.
350 is building a future that's just, prosperous, equitable and safe from the effects of the climate crisis. We're an international movement of ordinary people working to end the age of fossil fuels and build a world of community-led renewable energy for all.
LATEST NEWS
'Make Polio Great Again': Alarm Over RFK Jr. Lawyer Who Targeted Vaccine
"So if you're wondering if Donald Trump is trying to kill your kids, yes, yes he is," said one critic.
Dec 13, 2024
Public health advocates, federal lawmakers, and other critics responded with alarm to The New York Timesreporting on Friday that an attorney helping Robert F. Kennedy Jr. select officials for the next Trump administration tried to get the U.S. regulators to revoke approval of the polio vaccine in 2022.
"The United States has been a leader in the global fight to eradicate polio, which is poised to become only the second disease in history to be eliminated from the face of the earth after smallpox," said Liza Barrie, Public Citizen's campaign director for global vaccines access. "Undermining polio vaccination efforts now risks reversing decades of progress and unraveling one of the greatest public health achievements of all time."
Public Citizen is among various organizations that have criticized President-elect Donald Trump's choice of Kennedy to lead the Department of Health and Human Services, with the watchdog's co-president, Robert Weissman, saying that "he shouldn't be allowed in the building... let alone be placed in charge of the nation's public health agency."
Although Kennedy's nomination requires Senate confirmation, he is already speaking with candidates for top health positions, with help from Aaron Siri, an attorney who represented RFK Jr. during his own presidential campaign, the Times reported. Siri also represents the Informed Consent Action Network (ICAN) in petitions asking the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) "to withdraw or suspend approval of vaccines not only for polio, but also for hepatitis B."
According to the newspaper:
Mr. Siri is also representing ICAN in petitioning the FDA to "pause distribution" of 13 other vaccines, including combination products that cover tetanus, diphtheria, polio, and hepatitis A, until their makers disclose details about aluminum, an ingredient researchers have associated with a small increase in asthma cases.
Mr. Siri declined to be interviewed, but said all of his petitions were filed on behalf of clients. Katie Miller, a spokeswoman for Mr. Kennedy, said Mr. Siri has been advising Mr. Kennedy but has not discussed his petitions with any of the health nominees. She added, "Mr. Kennedy has long said that he wants transparency in vaccines and to give people choice."
After the article was published, Siri called it a "typical NYT hit piece plainly written by those lacking basic reading and thinking skills," and posted a series of responses on social media. He wrote in part that "ICAN's petition to the FDA seeks to revoke a particular polio vaccine, IPOL, and only for infants and children and only until a proper trial is conducted, because IPOL was licensed in 1990 by Sanofi based on pediatric trials that, according to FDA, reviewed safety for only three days after injection."
The Times pointed out that experts consider placebo-controlled trials that would deny some children polio shots unethical, because "you're substituting a theoretical risk for a real risk," as Dr. Paul A. Offit, a vaccine expert at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, explained. "The real risks are the diseases."
Ayman Chit, head of vaccines for North America at Sanofi, told the newspaper that development of the vaccine began in 1977, over 280 million people worldwide have received it, and there have been more than 300 studies, some with up to six months of follow-up.
Trump, who is less than six weeks out from returning to office, has sent mixed messages on vaccines in recent interviews.
Asked about RFK Jr.'s anti-vaccine record during a Time "Person of the Year" interview published Thursday, the president-elect said that "we're going to be able to do very serious testing" and certain vaccines could be made unavailable "if I think it's dangerous."
Trump toldNBC News last weekend: "Hey, look, I'm not against vaccines. The polio vaccine is the greatest thing. If somebody told me to get rid of the polio vaccine, they're going to have to work real hard to convince me. I think vaccines are—certain vaccines—are incredible. But maybe some aren't. And if they aren't, we have to find out."
Both comments generated concern—like the Friday reporting in the Times, which University of Alabama law professor and MSNBC columnist Joyce White Vance called "absolutely terrifying."
She was far from alone. HuffPost senior front page editor Philip Lewis said that "this is just so dangerous and ridiculous" while Zeteo founder Mehdi Hasan declared, "We are so—and I use this word advisedly—fucked."
Ryan Cooper, managing editor at The American Prospect, warned that "they want your kids dead."
Author and musician Mikel Jollett similarly said, "So if you're wondering if Donald Trump is trying to kill your kids, yes, yes he is."
Multiple critics altered Trump's campaign slogan to "Make Polio Great Again."
U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) responded with a video on social media:
Without naming anyone, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), a polio survivor, put out a lengthy statement on Friday.
"The polio vaccine has saved millions of lives and held out the promise of eradicating a terrible disease. Efforts to undermine public confidence in proven cures are not just uninformed—they're dangerous," he said in part. "Anyone seeking the Senate's consent to serve in the incoming administration would do well to steer clear of even the appearance of association with such efforts."
Keep ReadingShow Less
Biden Pardon of 'Kids-for-Cash' Judge Michael Conahan Sparks Outrage
"It's a big slap in the face for us once again," said one of the disgraced judge's victims.
Dec 13, 2024
Victims of a scheme in which a pair of Pennsylvania judges conspired to funnel thousands of children into private detention centers in exchange for millions of dollars in kickbacks expressed outrage following U.S. President Joe Biden's Thursday commutation of one of the men's sentences.
In 2010, former Luzerne County Judge Michael Conahan pleaded guilty to federal racketeering charges and was sentenced to more than 17 years in prison after he and co-conspirator Mark Ciavarella shut down a county-run juvenile detention facility and then took nearly $3 million in payments from the builder and co-owner of for-profit lockups, into which the judges sent children as young as 8 years old.
"It's a big slap in the face for us once again," Amanda Lorah—who was sentenced by Conahan to five years of juvenile detention over a high school fight—toldWBRE.
Sandy Fonzo, whose son killed himself after being sentenced to juvenile detention, said in a statement: "I am shocked and I am hurt. Conahan's actions destroyed families, including mine, and my son's death is a tragic reminder of the consequences of his abuse of power."
"This pardon feels like an injustice for all of us who still suffer," Fonzo added. "Right now I am processing and doing the best I can to cope with the pain that this has brought back."
Many of Conahan's victims were first-time or low-level offenders. The Pennsylvania Supreme Court would later throw out thousands of cases adjudicated by the Conahan and Ciaverella, the latter of whom is serving a 28-year sentence for his role in the scheme.
Conahan—who is 72 and had been under house arrest since being transferred from prison during the Covid-19 pandemic—was one of around 1,500 people who received commutations or pardons from Biden on Thursday. While the sweeping move was welcomed by criminal justice reform advocates, many also decried the president's decision to not grant clemency to any of the 40 men with federal death sentences.
Others have called on Biden—who earlier this month pardoned his son Hunter Biden after promising he wouldn't—to grant clemency to people including Indigenous activist Leonard Peltier and environmental lawyer Steven Donziger.
"There's never going to be any closure for us."
"So he wants to talk about Conahan and everybody else, but what is Joe Biden doing for all of these kids who absolutely got nothing, and almost no justice in this whole thing that happened?" said Lorah. "So it's nothing for us, but it seems that Conahan is just getting a slap on the wrist every which way he possibly could still today."
"There's never going to be any closure for us," she added. "There's never going to be, somehow, some way, these two men are always going to pop up, but now, when you think about the president of the United States letting him get away with this, who even wants to live in this country at this point? I'm totally shocked, I can't believe this."
Keep ReadingShow Less
77 House Dems Call for 'Full Assessment' of Israeli Compliance With US Law
Lawmakers told the Biden administration they are "deeply troubled by the continued level of civilian casualties and humanitarian suffering in Gaza."
Dec 13, 2024
As Israel continues to decimate the Gaza Strip with American weapons, 77 Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives this week demanded that the Biden administration "provide a full assessment of the status of Israel's compliance with all relevant U.S. policies and laws, including National Security Memorandum 20 (NSM-20) and Section 620I of the Foreign Assistance Act."
Reps. Jason Crow (D-Colo.), Madeleine Dean (D-Pa.), and Chrissy Houlahan (D-Pa.) spearheaded the Thursday letter to Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, with less than six weeks left in President Joe Biden's term.
Since Biden issued NSM-20 in February, his administration has repeatedly accepted the Israel government's assurances about the use of U.S. weapons, despite reports from journalists and human rights groups about how they have helped Israeli forces slaughter at least 44,875 Palestinians and injure another 106,454 people in the besieged enclave over the past 14 months.
"Our concerns remain urgent and largely unresolved, including arbitrary restrictions on humanitarian aid and insufficient delivery routes."
House Democrats' letter begins by declaring support for "Israel's right to self-defense," denouncing the Hamas-led October 2023 attack, and endorsing the Biden administration's efforts "to broker a bilateral cease-fire that includes the release of hostages," noting the deal recently negotiated for the Israeli government and the Lebanese group Hezbollah.
"Further, we condemn the unprecedented Iranian attacks against Israel launched on April 13, 2024, and October 1, 2024," the letter states, declining to mention the Israeli actions that led to those responses. "We must continue to avoid a major regional conflict—and we welcome the concerted diplomatic efforts by the U.S. and our allies to prevent further escalation."
"We are also deeply troubled by the continued level of civilian casualties and humanitarian suffering in Gaza," the lawmakers wrote, citing the administration's October 13 letter imposing a 30-day deadline for Israel to improve humanitarian conditions in Palestinian territory. "That deadline has expired, and while some progress has been made, we believe the Israeli government has not yet fulfilled the requirements outlined in your letter."
Asked during a November 12 press conference if the Israeli government has met the administration's demands, State Department spokesperson Vedant Patel said that "we have not made an assessment that they are in violation of U.S. law."
Shortly after that, U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) forced votes on resolutions to block the sale of 120mm tank rounds, 120mm high-explosive mortar rounds, and Joint Direct Attack Munitions (JDAMs) to Israel, but they didn't pass.
Progressives and Democrats in Congress have been sounding the alarm about U.S. government complicity in Israel's armed assault and starvation campaign—which have led to an ongoing genocide case at the International Court of Justice—to varying degrees since October 2023, including with a May letter led by Crow and Rep. Chris Deluzio (D-Pa.) and signed by 85 others.
Citing that letter on Thursday, the 77 House Democrats wrote that "our concerns remain urgent and largely unresolved, including arbitrary restrictions on humanitarian aid and insufficient delivery routes, among others. As a result, Gaza's civilian population is facing dire famine."
"We believe further administrative action must be taken to ensure Israel upholds the assurances it provided in March 2024 to facilitate, and not directly or indirectly obstruct, U.S. humanitarian assistance," the letter concludes. "We remain committed to a negotiated solution that can bring an end to the fighting, free the remaining hostages, surge humanitarian aid, and lay the groundwork to rebuild Gaza with a legitimate Palestinian governing body. We thank you and the administration for its ongoing work to achieve those shared goals."
Keep ReadingShow Less
Most Popular