PORTLAND PRESS HERALD • August 28, 2024
The Maine Public Employee Retirement System is using your tax dollars to make climate change worse. Our taxes pay the salaries of state workers, and part of those salaries goes into their pension fund, Maine PERS. In 2021, our state Legislature passed a law telling Maine PERS to stop investing in the expansion of fossil fuels infrastructure. Maine PERS decided to ignore that law. This is puzzling because there are strategies that safeguard both pension fund profitability and our families’ safety from climate disruption. Research shows that the Maine PERS pension fund would be larger today if they had pursued these divestment strategies 20 years ago. ~ Richard Thomas, Ph.D., Waterville