Pennsylvania Treasurer Robin L. Wiessmann this week joined more than 50 leading investors, including the nation's largest public pension fund and the world's largest listed hedge fund, in calling on the U.S. Senate to enact strong federal legislation to curb the pollution causing global warming.

The investor group issued a letter to Senate leaders calling for a national climate policy to reduce U.S. greenhouse gas emissions by 60 to 90 percent below 1990 levels by 2050.

"Enacting climate policy legislation and enforcing climate-related information disclosure by businesses protects both our environment and our bottom line. Investments that include or take advantage of environmental and technological trends and developments will have significant influence on economic performance and energy self-sufficiency," Treasurer Wiessmann said. "The actions we call for today will create new investment opportunities in the clean technology sector and allow investors to thoroughly assess the opportunities and risks associated with the companies with whom they do business."

The group of 52 investors, organized by Ceres and the Investor Network on Climate Risk, includes institutional investors, asset managers, treasurers and controllers such as the California Public Employees Retirement System, F&C Asset Management, the Man Group (a hedge fund), and state treasurers and controllers for California, Connecticut, Maryland, New York, North Carolina, Oregon, Rhode Island and Vermont.

In sending the letter, investors sent a strong message that climate policy uncertainty and the lack of federal regulations may be undermining companies' long-term competitiveness because it is preventing them from making large-scale capital investments in clean energy and other low-carbon technologies and practices.

Treasurer Wiessmann's signature on this letter comes after she made a strategic investment of $15 million in publicly traded funds that hold stocks of companies that provide solutions for environmental problems or operate in a responsible manner with respect to the environment.

These strategic investments initiated Treasurer Wiessmann's Keystone Green Investment Strategy, which seeks superior returns for Commonwealth assets from clean technologies, such as innovative alternative or renewable energy sources, and clean and green technologies that enable companies to reduce their emissions to the environment.

Treasurer Wiessmann's action was the result of the recently developed Pennsylvania Investment Principles, which address the "next frontier of investing" by weighing the impact of geopolitical, environmental, governance, and other strategic factors on an investment's financial appropriateness. These factors allow Treasury's investment decisions to be accompanied by economic analysis of long-term considerations, including sustainability.

The investor letter also calls on Senate leaders to press U.S. regulatory bodies -- specifically, the Securities and Exchange Commission -- to issue specific guidance on what companies should disclose to investors on risks they face from climate change. Investors made the same such request in a petition they filed with the SEC last fall.

Treasurer Wiessmann and her fellow signatories recognize that environmental factors are already demonstrating a potentially pervasive impact on business and investors. Examples include global climate change, which will have profound impacts on many economic sectors including agriculture, shipping, insurance, and real estate; volatility in price of carbon-based fuels, creating opportunities and risks to sectors reliant on such fuels; and the likelihood of carbon regulation has substantial transformational impacts.

Cognizant of these impacts as well as recent scientific reports concluding that climate change is taking place and that human activities are the primary contributor, investors are calling for the Senate to take the following three actions:

· enact legislation that will reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 25-40 percent below 1990 levels by 2020 and 80-95 percent below 1990 levels by 2050 in line with the targets and timetables laid out by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the world's leading body of climate experts.

· realign national energy and transportation policies to stimulate research, development and deployment of new and existing clean technologies at the scale necessary to achieve greenhouse gas reduction goals.

· Press the Securities and Exchange Commission to define the material issues related to climate change that businesses should disclose to help investors understand the risks and opportunities related to climate.

"The recently developed Pennsylvania Investment Principles call upon Treasury as an institutional investor to encourage appropriate changes in corporate disclosure and governance practices with regard to environmental issues," Treasurer Wiessmann said. "In the spirit of today's investor vigilance, Treasury will pursue the release of information about management decisions that can expose the company to, or help it avoid, material threats from environmental factors."

5/23/2008