"I’m proud to say in New York, we’ve divested $5 billion dollars from the oil companies, from the fossil fuel industry," the mayor told voters this past Sunday in Iowa. | John Locher/AP Photo De Blasio defends claim city has divested from fossil fuels while admitting it hasn’t yet

Mayor Bill de Blasio on Friday defended his oft-repeated claim that New York City has divested $5 billion from fossil fuels, while admitting the city has yet to actually drop the holdings — and likely won't for years.

De Blasio was asked on WNYC's The Brian Lehrer Show to respond to a POLITICO report that the mayor was exaggerating his claims on fossil fuel divestment on the campaign trail. While de Blasio has repeatedly said the city has withdrawn its fossil fuel holdings — becoming the “first major American state or city to do so“ — so far it's only begun efforts to study the issue and even the study may not be embraced by all five of the city's pension boards.


"I’m proud to say in New York, we’ve divested $5 billion dollars from the oil companies, from the fossil fuel industry," the mayor told voters this past Sunday in Iowa.

On Friday, he told Lehrer, “My memory is it’s going to take another year or two, but when it has been put in motion it will happen and when it’s all done it’s $5 billion dollars,” he said.

Still, the mayor declined to revise his prior statements because he said divestment is a done deal.

“It does take time to implement that — it’s true,” de Blasio said. “But we announced the divestment along with the leaders of the unions who represent those pension funds. So everyone already said we are divesting those resources. A decision has been made.”

While the mayor may have made a decision, the other people who have to vote on divestment have not.

The city’s $199 billion pension system is made up of five pension funds, each controlled by their own board of trustees that have labor union representation. While three of the boards have agreed to study divestment, the boards for the Police Pension Fund and Fire Pension Fund have not.

“There’s not enough information there to show that divesting would be good for our fund,” said Gerard Fitzgerald, president of the Uniformed Firefighters Association, a union that has voting members on the board for the Fire Pension Fund.

A spokesperson for the Police Benevolent Association declined to comment, though the rank-and-file union does not have the rosiest relationship with the mayor.

De Blasio’s $5 billion divestment figure assumes that all of the pension boards will vote in favor of the plan. The three pension boards that so far have only agreed to study divestment have $3.7 billion in fossil fuel holdings, according to the New York City Independent Budget Office.

But that figure also assumes the boards for the three funds will ultimately vote to divest all the assets identified by IBO.

City Comptroller Scott Stringer’s office put out a request for proposals for divestment advisers that “will inform the development of a comprehensive and prudent divestment strategy to preserve the retirement funds of City employees and address climate change risks, consistent with fiduciary duty.”

The divestment advisers have not yet been named, so it’s unclear what kind of “strategy” for divestment will be brought before the trustees for the three funds — the Teachers Retirement System, the New York City Employees Retirement System and New York City Board of Education Retirement System.

There is union support for divestment from voting members on those three boards. The United Federation of Teachers and DC37 have said they support divestment, though one voting member on NYCERS said he was undecided on the issue.

“The prudent thing to do when it comes to funds and pensions with this enormous responsibility is to do a study, not do a knee-jerk reaction because you think it gets you a few political votes because it looks like a good progressive issue,” said Greg Floyd, president of Teamsters Local 237 and a trustee for NYCERS — the city’s largest pension fund.

Still, de Blasio says he is confident that ultimately all five boards will drop fossil fuels from their holdings.

“Everyone’s been unified — we are divesting from fossil fuel investments,” de Blasio said.