Jeff Gudman for State Treasurer
Climate Change
Whether we like it or not, climate change has a significant impact on our financial landscape and must be factored into our decision making. However, I believe that simply selling off carbon-laden equities to other buyers is often an abdication of our responsibility to promote better, more helpful policy in the long run. When Oregon holds an investment, we have an opportunity to promote our values in the corporate governance of that entity. With that in mind, I would propose the following actions within the State Treasury:
Create a syndicate of other like-minded institutional investors to combine our proxy voting powers and push aggressively to ensure that our holdings are meaningfully and prudently planning to move past fossil fuel reliance — and acting on those plans.
Daylight the financial risks of climate change by including a climate change risk factor statement in the State’s bond issuances. Bond buyers are already factoring these concerns into pricing; it’s time we were open about it.
Examine the possible use of Oregon’s trust lands with regard to leveraging climate-friendly opportunities. For example, selling carbon credits for forestlands, or constructing solar arrays in rangelands (which would still be able to be utilized as rangeland).
Investment Transparency:
Making investment actions transparent and easily accessible to the public.
Currently: While all relevant Oregon Investment Council (OIC) materials are made available online, the average Oregonian trying to track investment decisions has to pour through hundreds of pages of uploaded analysis and meeting information in order to glean information about a single vote. In contrast, the Legislative Assembly has a very transparent “Oregon Legislative Information System” website that presents a crystal-clear picture to the general public of what is queued up, what votes have been taken, and what determinations have been made.
Our State Treasury can do better.
Recently, the State Treasury took a good step forward by making records of corporate governance actions more transparent, but there is still much more to be done, particularly when it comes to the state’s initial investment decisions.
Jeff's Plan: I will instruct the State Treasury to develop and launch an online investment information tool that allows Oregonians a clear view of what is occurring at the public OIC meetings: Records of proposals, testimony, supporting documents, and perhaps most importantly, actual records of OIC votes for fund commitments and policy items.
Although much (if not all) of this information is available to people who attend public OIC meetings currently, not everyone has the time to attend such meetings, or to thumb through the mountains of information online in order to find what they are looking for. Greater access to transparent information about OIC decisions can help better inform the public as well as policymakers.
And since the cost of this system can be borne by existing unused resources, it does not require any additional appropriation from the Legislature.
Taking Fossil Fuel Donations
Jeff Gudman is the only candidate for State Treasurer that has pledged not to take fossil fuel contributions.
Make up your own mind: Here are links to the Secretary of State's ORESTAR campaign finance tracker for both Jeff Gudman and Elizabeth Steiner.
When each candidate was asked if they would restrict themselves from accepting any new contributions from the timber industry or fossil fuel interests:
Jeff Gudman:
"Yes."
Elizabeth Steiner:
"No and no. I won't. And I'll tell you why. When I became a legislator I committed to not taking money from tobacco or pharmaceutical companies because as a physician I saw that as a conflict of interest. Over my tenure in the Legislature, I've received at least a total of $500,000 in contributions from corporate interests. The amounts from the timber industry has been well under, has been less than 5% of that total. The timing of these particular donations was unfortunate, but if you look at my ORESTAR (which the good thing about Oregon is that we have really good transparency and you can see every single donation I got) the timing was unfortunate but I also received tens of thousands of dollars from other corporations and other members of the lobby at the same time. Because I was doing exactly what I normally do, which is raise funds as a member of the Legislature." (March 20)
Thanks for reading. This is an example of the kind of transparency and engagement you can expect from Jeff Gudman as State Treasurer!
Paid for by Friends of Jeff Gudman | PAC 17431