Pennsylvania Tobacco Settlement Fund to invest terror-free; Policy prohibits investments from going to foreign companies tied to Iran and Sudan

The Pennsylvania Tobacco Settlement Investment Board (TSIB) adopted a resolution this week sponsored by State Rep. Josh Shapiro, D-Montgomery, that would prohibit Tobacco Settlement Investment fund monies from being invested in foreign companies tied to Iran and Sudan.

The TSIB was created in 2001 to manage the $11 billion settlement that Pennsylvania received from the national tobacco settlement. Settlement funds are reserved for health-related programs. The TSIB invests a portion of the funds. Shapiro was appointed to the TSIB in May 2008.

“With TSIB’s action, the message is clear: we will not use Pennsylvania’s tobacco fund dollars to prop up terrorist regimes and promote genocide. Instead we will invest terror-free and deliver a better return for Pennsylvania taxpayers. This is both morally and fiscally the right thing to do,” Shapiro said.

The Center for Security Policy’s Divest Terror Initiative has worked closely with Rep. Shapiro and his staff in promoting terror-free investing policies in Pennsylvania. Christopher Holton, the director of Divest Terror, commended Rep. Shapiro’s success and the decision of the TSIB to go terror-free:

“Everyone at Divest Terror congratulates Pennsylvania in taking this groundbreaking step to see to it that funds which are invested to promote the good health of the people of Pennsylvania are not used to provide corporate life support for our enemies who are killing U.S. G.I.s in the war on terrorism.”

“I commend the work of the Rep. Josh Shapiro and his colleagues in the Pennsylvania House of Representatives as well as the work of members of Congress and other state legislatures which acknowledges that repression of civil rights and violence toward innocent civilians must be checked not only in the policies of government but by the business decisions that affect the flows of private capital,” added Secretary John Blake of the Department of Community and Economic Development who serves as chairman of the TSIB.  “Yesterday, the Tobacco Settlement Investment Board sent a message to Pennsylvania taxpayers that the resources entrusted to our care will focus on business activities that improve quality of life – not threaten it.”

Shapiro has been leading the effort to divest Pennsylvania’s pension funds from companies doing business with state sponsors of terror. Beginning in 2007, Shapiro introduced divestment legislation. Yesterday’s resolution is similar to H.B. 1086 which he sponsored last legislative session. House Bill 1086 passed overwhelmingly in the House by a 185-15 vote and would have required the Public School Employees’ Retirement System and State Employees’ Retirement System to divest from companies doing business in Iran and Sudan. Unfortunately, the bill stalled in the Senate as time ran out in the session.

Iran is the world’s foremost sponsor of Jihadist terrorism with ties to Al Qaeda, Hezbollah and HAMAS, three of the largest Jihadist terrorist organizations in the world. Two of them, Al Qaeda and Hezbollah, are responsible for the deaths of more Americans than all other terrorist organizations in the world combined. In addition to their terror sponsorship, Iran also has a nuclear program operating in violation of international treaties and an active ballistic missile program.

Sudan’s genocidal activities are well known. Less well publicized is the fact that that genocide is but the byproduct of the Islamist regime in Khartoum’s campaign to impose Shariah law and the fact that Sudan is a major state sponsor of terrorism. In fact, Sudan was the host country for both Hezbollah and Al Qaeda in the 1990s and facilitated an alliance between the Shia and Salafi terrorist organizations. Moreover, the government of Sudan was found liable by a US federal judge in the deaths of 17 U.S. Navy sailors in the Al Qaeda terrorist attack on the USS Cole in Aden Harbor in 2000. The plot was hatched and planned in Sudan.

Terror-free investing is gaining support across the country. In 2007, the U.S. Congress approved a measure to authorize states to take divestment action on companies with ties to Sudan. A similar bill targeting Iran also was passed by the U.S. House of Representatives. Eighteen states and 23 cities have adopted divestment and terror-free legislation and policies of one sort or another. Wall Street has responded to the divestment movement by creating terror-free index funds that are even now outperforming funds with links to terror.