Despite enacting multiple laws and regulations aimed at reducing carbon emissions, including the Global Warming Response Act and the Energy Master Plan, the state of New Jersey has made little effort to assess or limit carbon emissions through the public-worker pension fund, which has over $2 billion invested in fossil fuel companies.
That is a hefty investment against the well-being of New Jersey’s future, and if we continue down the road of empty environmental rhetoric by legislative and executive leaders, it will be deadly. These costly investments directly contradict Executive Order 28, which directs the state Treasury and pledges our state to pursue an economic transition to carbon neutrality. Did the Treasury and Division of Investment not get the message? The Treasury has a fiduciary responsibility to protect pensioners’ retirement investments but maintains bad investments that will prevent New Jerseyans from reaching retirement while still having a habitable planet.
In 2022, New Jersey crossed a historic milestone of closing the final two coal-fired power plants, which was met with much fanfare. Gov. Murphy even triumphantly stated, “A world without coal is a cleaner, safer world. And when you’re the most densely populated state in America, as we are, that is doubly true.” Unfortunately, the New Jersey pension fund, led by Murphy’s Department of the Treasury and Division of Investment, has hundreds of millions of dollars invested in coal and companies that plan to develop new fossil fuel projects in the state, such as the $21.7 million handout to Williams Company and the $19.2 handout to Kinder Morgan. If these companies could complete their fossil fuel projects, our clean-energy goals would be impossible.
Hollow promises of clean energy from “environmental leaders” will not save this generation from the threat posed by fossil fuel investments.
It is also clear New Jersey’s agencies are contradicting each other. The state attorney general, along with the Department of Environmental Protection and Department of Community Affairs, are suing the five largest fossil fuel companies — Exxon, BP, Chevron, Shell, ConocoPhillips — for misleading the public on climate change. For over 50 years, these companies have led misinformation campaigns to showcase fossil fuels in a positive light. Exxon and BP are even meddling in national climate policy in New Jersey by hiding within institutions like Princeton. While the attorney general and other departments are seeking to hold the fossil fuel companies accountable, the New Jersey pension fund has invested over $1 billion in them. Investments in these companies undermine the interests of New Jerseyans and the efforts taken by our state’s law enforcement.
And to Gov. Murphy and all the other “cold-blooded capitalists” out there who claim that these efforts are political: We ran the numbers, and it’s not looking good for fossil fuels. Fossil fuels have experienced long-term declines in market performance and are being phased out from the country’s overall energy strategy. Fossil fuels have persisted as the worst-performing sector of the S&P 500 for over a decade. The U.S .Energy Information Administration documented that there has been zero organic growth in the fossil fuel industry since the 1990s. It’s an increasingly marginal and unprofitable player in U.S. energy and investor portfolios, and we must uphold the interests of the 800,000 New Jersey pensioners and truly ensure the financial longevity of the pension fund.
Young people have to fight tooth and nail for the complete divestment of the pension fund from fossil fuels when all metrics (besides fossil fuel campaign contributions) show that this is the right, intelligent and responsible thing to do. We are calling for action from the governor’s office, attorney general, Department of the Treasury, and for the Assembly and Senate appropriations committees to post and pass the divestment bill.
Every dollar invested in the fossil fuel industry is a dollar invested in the death of this planet. Actively working against the interests of youth and pensioners in this state is not a sustainable long-term strategy. It’s time for New Jersey to put its money where its mouth is and divest from fossil fuels.