The buzz has been about Moore’s position to block banking West Virginia’s public dollars with financial institutions hedging against fossil fuel investment.
who don’t want to do business with us,” Moore told Ingraham.
“I applaud your efforts,” the opinion host commented. And she concluded the segment by saying, “It’s inspiring. Thank you for doing what you’re doing.”
On Thursday morning, Moore was before a different audience, the Senate Finance Committee, to push for a bill laying out the path to withhold state deposits from those bankers that steer clear of investments in fossil fuel companies.
While the political argument has sizzle, Senate Bill 262 is mostly process. It authorizes the Treasurer to compile a list of companies with policies against investments in fossil fuel industries like coal or gas.
Then, the Treasurer could use the list to disqualify companies for banking contracts. Moore noted this would not apply to investments or pension funds, but would apply instead to more routine deposits of state funds. That amounts to about $8 billion, the Treasurer said.
Moore acknowledged he could do that without a law, but said the bill and the resulting list would provide greater transparency about what the Treasurer’s Office is doing.
The bill uses the term “boycott” to describe the actions of some investment companies.
Senators who discussed the bill tried to differentiate how it would treat financial companies making a societal judgment about carbon-producing industries as opposed to companies that make purely financial decisions about whether coal or gas are solid investments.
