BANGOR DAILY NEWS • January 5, 2026
Nearly five years ago, Maine passed a first-in-the-nation law requiring the state pension system to divest from fossil fuels. Thursday was the deadline to do it. Yet roughly $1.15 billion was still invested in the sector as of December. It has long been clear that the Maine Public Employees Retirement System wasn’t going to meet the deadline. The agency has cited a part of the law that requires it to divest while meeting its “fiduciary obligations” to current and future retirees. The 2021 law was part of an environmental movement to push institutions to get out of the fossil fuel sector. Maine’s pension system made its last investments focused on the fossil fuel sector in 2017. The share of money in the sector has naturally declined since then. It now sits at 5.4% and is expected to be under 4% by 2026. Getting out of fossil fuels at once would be costly, the agency argues.