Brad Lander called New York City’s intention to divest its pension funds from fossil fuel companies a right investment and climate change step.
Daby Carreras said the city should not be “propping up situations like promoters while being regulators at the exact same time.”
Democrat Lander and Republican Carreras debated the divestiture plan and other topics Friday night in their race to succeed the term-limited Scott Stringer.
Lander, a three-term City Council member from Brooklyn, is the heavy favorite in a city where Democrats outnumber Republicans 7-to-1.
Mayor Bill de Blasio, Stringer and U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez announced days earlier that trustees of three of the city’s pension funds will earmark $50 billion toward climate change initiatives by 2035.
The city’s move builds on the pension funds’ January measure to divest their portfolios of an estimated $4 billion in securities of fossil fuel reserve owners. The city's five major pension funds — city employees, police, fire, teachers and Board of Education — are valued at $273 billion overall.
De Blasio cited “an extensive and thorough fiduciary process to assess the portfolio’s exposure to fossil fuel stranded asset risk and industry decline and other financial risks stemming from climate change.”
City officials cited the recent damage from Hurricane Ida, which in late August caused 13 city deaths and massive flooding to streets, homes and the subway system.
“Climate risk is a long-term risk for New York City,” said Lander, 52. “It’s a risk for the economics of the pension funds, it’s a risk for their retirement security.
“We know what the growing sectors are and definitely renewables, clean energy and technology will be growing broadly in the decades to come,” Lander said. “The people who are invested in these will do better for their members.”
Carreras, 40, a money manager on Wall Street, said the city comptroller should be fiduciary first. “The entire reason why I’m here is because I bring money here,” he said. “I’m a money wave. Ching, ching, ching goes the money tree.”
The candidates debated remotely because Carreras would not reveal whether he had the COVID-19 vaccine.
The comptroller minds the city’s books, audits agencies, safeguards its pension system and helps manage bond issuance along with the mayor’s Office of Management and Budget. The position is also a political stepping stone. Eight of the last nine comptrollers have run for mayor, including Stringer, who lost in the Democratic primary in June.
Conservative Paul Rodriguez and Libertarian-Independent John Tobacco are also on the ballot.
According to data on Stringer’s website, the city has $38.6 billion of general obligation debt outstanding.
Transitional Finance Authority future tax-secured debt and building aid revenue bond debt total $41.6 billion and $8.5 billion, respectively. Municipal Water Finance Authority debt is $31.1 billion.
S&P Global Ratings and Moody’s Investors Service rate the city’s GOs AA and Aa2, respectively. Fitch Ratings and Kroll Bond Rating Agency assign respective ratings of AA-minus and AA-plus. All four assign stable outlooks.
