By Fossil Free Somerville

The city of Somerville has submitted a home rule petition to the state legislature to fight back against regulatory opposition that blocked it from divesting the city’s pension system from the fossil fuel industry.

This move comes after the Board of Aldermen unanimously approved the home rule petition at its February 22 meeting with a 10-0 vote. The petition was then submitted to the Massachusetts House of Representatives under docket #HD.4700, and Rep. Denise Provost has taken the lead on the bill.

“Institutional investors all over the world are taking action to prevent the loss of assets sunk into obsolete fossil fuels,” Provost said. “Our laws now require reducing carbon emissions, and new technologies are making renewable energy less expensive. It’s time to embrace the clean future of energy and free ourselves from its dirty past.”

Provost originally suggested that the Somerville Retirement Board draft a home rule petition as a response to opposition from the state Public Employee Retirement Administration Commission, which claimed that the board could not restrict investments from fossil fuels without a state law directing it to do so. At a Somerville Finance Committee meeting, SRB member Alex Nosnik noted that the SRB disagreed with PERAC’s conclusions.

“After a thorough evaluation of PERAC’s opinion with the Retirement Board’s outside counsel, we concluded that PERAC’s legal interpretation was unfounded,” Nosnik told the committee. Nosnik added that the home rule petition would allow the Somerville retirement system to divest in accordance with its fiduciary obligation.

“Somerville’s city government and community at large are fully supportive of divestment,” FFS member Sean Donaghy said. “The city has done its due diligence on this topic and found that divestment is the best way to protect Somerville pensioners from losses due to a dirty, collapsing industry.”

Divestment from the fossil fuel industry has been a priority in Somerville for years. Mayor Joseph Curtatone has been calling for divestment since his 2014 inaugural address, and the Board of Aldermen passed a nonbinding resolution in support of divestment that year after Fossil Free Somerville led a successful petition drive. The SRB has researched the issue since then, interviewing experts on climate change, new technology and their effects on the fossil fuel industry.