The Buffalo News
Another Voice
The politically correct push to force public pension funds to immediately begin to divest from fossil fuels has become a runaway train in New York with many politicians, lawmakers and environmental activists at the wheel.
But the truth is that divestment will have little, if any, impact on slowing climate change, but could have a crushing effect on state and local public employees, retirees, their families and – ultimately – taxpayers.
No reasonable person disputes that climate change is real, man-made and will harm the planet we leave to our children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren.
As president of the Suffolk County Association of Municipal Employees, the largest independent union in New York, I know that a majority of our more than 10,000 active and retired members agree there needs to be progressive change to address the climate change issue.
But divestment is regressive by nature. Studies have shown that it won’t slow climate change, but will just speed up the economic impact on working men and women.
Immediate, forced divestment asks working families to shoulder a disproportionate amount of the cost of the change in investment strategies by sacrificing the performance of their pensions. It also could ultimately affect taxpayers if the new investments don’t perform as well.
That’s why it’s a bad idea to require the state’s nearly $200 billion Common Retirement Fund to completely and immediately divest from fossil fuel companies. It’s also a bad idea to force New York City to divest its $189 billion pension fund from fossil fuels within five years.
The Common Retirement Fund holds the assets of the New York State and Local Retirement System. It represents about 650,000 active state and local employees and 452,000 retirees…
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