Tom Steyer Exaggerates Fossil Fuel Divestment

“Over 10 years ago I realized that there was something going on that had to do with fossil fuels, that we had to change. So I divested from fossil fuels.”

— Tom Steyer, at the Democratic presidential primary debate in January

This is exaggerated.

Steyer, the billionaire businessman who has emphasized climate change as a presidential candidate, has repeatedly faced questions over how investments in oil, gas and coal companies helped him amass his fortune. Since 2014, Steyer has vowed to free his vast holdings from investments in fossil fuels. On the campaign trail, he has said that he has “divested from all of that stuff” though he has conceded that “there’s probably some dregs left.”

A review of Steyer’s financial disclosure form reveals some of those “dregs” — and, more broadly, just how difficult it is to disentangle investments from carbon-emitting industries altogether.

Most directly, Steyer has assets worth between $1,001 and $15,000 in Direct Petroleum Exploration Inc., a Colorado company that “operates oil and gas field properties,” according to Bloomberg. (The form lists assets in ranges, not exact amounts.) The Steyer campaign said these assets are valued at less than $4,500.

He also has a stake of between $1.25 million and $5.5 million in funds managed by M.H. Carnegie & Co., an Australian firm that is the second largest shareholder of the oil and gas exploration company Strike Energy Limited. And HMI Capital Partners, where Steyer has invested between $5 million and $25 million, owned stocks in Texas-based Summit Midstream Partners, which focuses primarily on shale infrastructure, according to a 2018 form filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

For several other funds backed by Steyer, it’s difficult to independently verify which have holdings in oil and gas companies and which do not.

That’s because investment companies often manage several funds and are not required to detail the specific makeup of each to government regulators. And Steyer, in his disclosure form, noted that confidentiality agreements prevent him from revealing the underlying assets of some funds to the Federal Election Commission, though he said he will divest from these funds if elected.

For example, he listed assets of between $25 million and $50 million in Artisan Partners Holdings L.P., but the portfolios of different Artisan funds vary widely. Its “Small Cap” fund scored an A rating — signifying no stock holdings in oil, gas and coal companies — from Fossil Free Funds, a website maintained by As You Sow, an environmental group. But its “Sustainable Emerging Markets” fund received a grade of D.

Similarly, Steyer has between $6 million and $30 million in two funds operated by Tinicum Inc. The group’s overall portfolio includes numerous oil and gas companies, but it’s unclear whether Steyer’s investment includes stakes in any of those companies.

Steyer also owns shares worth between $600,000 and $1.2 million in Berkshire Hathaway Inc. The conglomerate’s subsidiaries include several oil and gas companies.

“If he invests in Berkshire Hathaway, then I don’t think he has fully divested,” said Jennie C. Stephens, a professor of sustainability science and policy at Northeastern University.

In a statement, the Steyer campaign said that Steyer “has provided all investment funds with a copy of his investment policy so that they can be screened clear of fossil fuel holdings. If any investments don’t meet Tom’s screening, the proceeds from those investments are donated to charity.”

The campaign did not answer questions about Steyer’s investments in the funds. But it noted that Steyer has “spent over $50 million taking on big oil and gas companies and beating them at the ballot box, and he and his wife Kat took the Giving Pledge to give more than half of their money away to good causes while they are alive.”

For Steyer to be fully divested, he would need to withdraw funds from all portfolios or combined funds that include fossil fuel holdings, Stephens said. “That’s one of the main reasons it is so hard to do because so many investment mechanisms are a combination of lots of different companies.”

“Almost every investment portfolio will have direct and indirect exposures to fossil fuels, even ones that claim to be fully divested,” said Ben Caldecott, the director of the Oxford Sustainable Finance Program at the University of Oxford. That’s because “investment portfolios, to greater and lesser extents, reflect the real economy. The global economy, and particularly the U.S. economy, is incredibly carbon polluting.”

This article originally appeared in The New York Times .