Tabatha Miller – Divesting Fossil Fuel corporations from pension investments

California Legislature  2023-2024 Regular Session
Senate Bills 252 & 253

A presentation by Tabatha Miller, Finance Director for the City of Arcata, on recent State bills involving the divestment from fossil fuel investments, and how this may affect Arcata’s pension funds.

From the September 20, 2023, meeting of the Arcata City Council.  With discussion from the City Council and public comment.

The video of the presentation is here, below.
The audio and slides of the presentation are after the video, here.
References and interesting articles are below the slides.

This is a superb summary of the situation, with clear easy-to-understand graphics. Overall an excellent presentation. Thank you, Tabatha!

Councilmember Meredith Matthews:

I’m so glad we hired you, Tabatha. Thank you so much for, you know, you saw that this was something that we were interested in and you took it and ran with it and made such an important and informative presentation. Thank you for all the time that you spend talking about pensions with me. But, really, this was a really great presentation. I’m looking forward to like studying it again. And thank you.

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Video of the presentation from Tabatha Miller

Includes questions and comments from the City Council and from the public.

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Audio and Slides from the presentation

To play the audio and look at the slides, simply start the audio player, below.
The audio player will stay on screen at the top, and can be paused or backed up as you want. The down-arrow on the right of the audio player can be used to download the audio track for a podcast.

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References and Interesting Articles

1. CalPERS and Divestment
2. Governing.com:  Pension Struggles to Ditch Fossil Fuels
   
3. Calmatters.org: Will California’s largest pensions, CalPERS and CalSTRS, divest from fossil fuels?
4. Colorado Public Retirement Association Fossil Fuel Stocks Divestment Analysis
5. LA Times:  CA sues five major oil companies
6. BlackRock Investment and Fiduciary Analysis for Potential Fossil Fuel Divestment Phase 3
7. CA Senate Bill 252 2023-24 Session
8. CA Senate Bill 253 2023-24 Session
9. CalCities: Costly pension divestment bills held in Committee
10. Politico.com: Divestment’s uphill battle
11. Bloomberglaw.com:  CalPERS Fossil Fuel Divestment Bill Hinges on Union Support
    
12. Waterloo News June 28, 2023
13. Fortune:  3 NYC pension funds are being sued
14. NYC Pension Funds:  NYC City Comptroller/Lawsuit Challenging Fossil Fuel Divestment
15. Pensions & Investments: Divestment-fossil-fuels-looms-larger-some-asset-owners
    
16. Forbes: California’s Misguided Lawsuit Against Oil Firms

If you are printing this page the embedded links above will not work. Below are the actual URL addresses.

1. https://www.calpers.ca.gov/docs/forms-publications/calpers-and-divestment.pdf
2. https://www.governing.com/finance/california-pension-struggles-to-ditch-fossil-fuels-funds
3. https://calmatters.org/economy/2023/06/california-pension-calpers-fossil-fuel/
4. Colorado Public Retirement Association Fossil Fuel Stocks Divestment Analysis
   https://drive.google.com/file/d/11bNMH6wd8LoUyKlALAp2UsXY4GH0NBrd/view
5. https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2023-09-16/california-sues-five-major-oil-companies-for-lying-about-climate-change
6. https://ieefa.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/BlackRock-Phase-Three.pdf
7. https://legiscan.com/CA/text/SB252/2023
8. https://legiscan.com/CA/text/SB253/id/2813944
9. https://www.calcities.org/news/post/2022/07/06/costly-pension-divestment-bills-held-in-committee
10. https://www.politico.com/newsletters/the-long-game/2022/07/05/pension-fossil-money-00044002
11. https://news.bloomberglaw.com/daily-labor-report/calpers-fossil-fuel-divestment-bill-hinges-on-union-support
12. https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/us-public-pensions-could-be-21-billion-richer-right-now-says-new-university-of-waterloo-and-standearth-report-301865100.html
13. https://fortune.com/2023/05/12/new-york-pension-fund-lawsuit-anti-esg/
14. https://comptroller.nyc.gov/newsroom/nyc-pension-funds-lawsuit-challenging-fossil-fuel-divestment-is-a-waste-of-time-and-courts-should-end-this-drain-on-public-resources/
15. https://www.pionline.com/esg/divestment-fossil-fuels-looms-larger-some-asset-owners
16. https://www.forbes.com/sites/rrapier/2023/09/17/californias-misguided-lawsuit-against-oil-firms/?sh=485f5a134637