Politico
Danielle Muoio
NEW YORK — National environmental advocates flanked Bill de Blasio in January as the mayor announced the first steps toward stripping $5 billion in New York City pension fund investments from Big Oil. Fossil fuel corporations have profited from “horrible, disgusting” practices, de Blasio said, and New York has to be a “beacon to the world. … We have to show it can be done.”
But de Blasio’s proposal — which was not actually to divest, but to simply study its effects — immediately drew skepticism from New York City’s five pension boards, which worried that dropping oil and gas stocks would hurt their retirees’ financial futures. The police pension board quickly rejected the idea. The firefighters’ board tabled the notion. Trustees on the other three boards approved the study, but still expressed wariness.
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