Coal divestment advances

JUNE 24: Today the California coal divestment bill, SB 185, cleared another hurdle. The Assembly Committee on Public Employees, Retirement, and Social Security voted to send the bill to the Assembly Appropriations Committee by a vote of 5 to 1. With this success, much remains to be done. You can help by signing this petition and contacting your…

Read more

Next step for SB 185: contact your Assembly Member

Following passage by the California Senate, the coal divestment bill (SB 185) is now being considered by the California Assembly. The first hurdle is the Committee on Public Employees, Retirement, and Social Security, which will vote next Wednesday morning, June 24, whether to send SB 185 to the floor of the Assembly. The bill would ban investments in thermal coal…

Read more

State Senate passes SB 185 to divest coal

Today the California State Senate made history, passing SB 185 by a large margin, 22–14. The bill calls for the nation’s two largest state pension funds, the California Public Employees’ Retirement System (CalPERS) and the California State Teachers’ Retirement System (CalSTRS), to divest from thermal coal. The bill now moves to the California State Assembly. Senate President pro Tempore…

Read more

Senate to vote on SB 185 coal divestment

by Janet Cox The bill in the California State Senate requiring CalPERS and CalSTRS to divest from coal companies, SB 185, along with the other bills in this year’s climate package, will be voted on by the full Senate on Wednesday morning, June 3, most likely between 10 am and noon. This will be the…

Read more

Why coal divestment is important

Our goal at Fossil Free California is to reduce investments in all fossil fuels—coal, oil, and gas—and to publicize their destructive effects. But some institutions, resistant to total divestment, are willing to consider divesting only from coal. Is that a position we can support? Emphatically yes! A giant step Divesting from coal is a giant step…

Read more

Senate committee bans coal investment

by Janet Cox On April 13, the California State Senate Public Employment and Retirement Committee approved SB 185, the Public Divestiture of Thermal Coal Companies Act, 3–2 on a party line vote. The bill, sponsored by Senate President pro Tempore Kevin de León, requires the state’s two largest public pension funds to divest from companies…

Read more

Divest! Start with coal!

by Janet Cox Help us strip dirty coal money from California pension funds. Help us pass Senate Bill 185! Kevin de León, President pro Tem of the California State Senate, has offered the divestment movement a tremendous gift. With SB 185, he has proposed a law that could become the first divestment legislation passed by…

Read more

CalPERS gift—a lump of coal

Here is more disturbing information about the dangers of coal, from Gary Horvitz. Gary is an erstwhile divestment activist and current CCL volunteer devoted to enacting carbon pricing worldwide. There is no dispute that coal is the dirtiest form of energy, contributing more carbon to the atmosphere than any other source of power. The coal life-cycle…

Read more

No coal in your stocking

Burning any fossil fuels is bad for the planet. We must stop extracting long-buried carbon from underground and spewing it into the atmosphere, creating a suicidal heat shield. But of all the types of fossil fuels, coal is the worst. It’s dirty, unhealthful, and carbon-intensive. It’s also, unfortunately, readily available and transportable, and it’s easy…

Read more