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Josephs supports Treasurer's Office investment strategy

HARRISBURG, Jan. 16 – State Rep. Babette Josephs, D-Phila., is supporting the state treasurer in her strategy to divest $1.2 million in state funds from China Petroleum, a company that does business with the government of Sudan and is complicit in the genocide of 400,000 of its citizens.

Treasurer Robin Wiessmann made the announcement at a Capitol news conference today in which she also unveiled a new investment framework that will take not only geopolitical but also environmental and corporate governance factors into consideration when she makes investments on behalf of the Treasury Fund.

"The Commonwealth has a fiduciary responsibility to its citizens to ensure that investments made for our public funds enhance the bottom line for their beneficiaries. And socially responsible investing will help do that," said Josephs, chairperson of the House State Government Committee.

"I applaud Treasurer Wiessmann for her actions and her strategy for investing. As a fund manager and professional investor, she recognizes that an investment in a company which is irresponsible can threaten Pennsylvania's funds' long-term value and present risks that we don't need to take. We should be avoiding Enron and sub-prime mortgage investments with this policy.

"However, I continue to push for the Senate to vote on my bill that would make her investment strategy a permanent one for the billions of dollars invested in Pennsylvania's public pension funds," Josephs concluded.

Josephs' legislation (H.B.1140) features an approach called the targeted divestment model, which calls for the withholding of Pennsylvania's pension fund investments from companies that are directly or indirectly helping the Sudanese government perpetuate genocide. Only if a company refuses to change its behavior in response to shareholder engagement would the model call for divestment from that company. Similar divestment strategies helped to bring about the end of apartheid in South Africa. House Bill 1140 was approved by the House with only three negative votes and is now in the Senate Finance Committee where it has received a hearing and is awaiting a vote.

The Sudanese government has been sponsoring ethnic cleansing of non-Arab Darfurians since February 2003. To date, more than 400,000 Darfurian civilians have been killed, and millions more have been displaced and are reliant on humanitarian aid. The international community has failed to act, but states, cities and universities, among others, have stepped into the gap by employing divestment strategies such as I have outlined in my bill.

"We must send the government of Sudan a message that we do not tolerate genocide. Today's announcement and the enactment of my divestment legislation will hit where it will be understood the most -- on the economic level."