Dozens of residents and advocacy groups urged the Santa Clara County Finance and Government Operations Committee on Nov. 6 to forward a Sustainability Commission recommendation to exclude new or renewed investments in fossil fuels — and to extend county policy to companies they said are complicit in human-rights abuses.

Speakers representing community groups including CARE, 350 Silicon Valley, the Sierra Club and student and labor organizations said taxpayer dollars should not be reinvested in companies such as Chevron, Exxon, Caterpillar, Palantir, Apple, Microsoft, Intel and Dell. "Divest from fossil fuels. Ethical investment now," said Musa (CARE), who described the items as a package of financial and human-rights concerns. Other speakers tied fossil-fuel investments to local pollution and to broader international human-rights claims.

Why it matters: The Sustainability Commission recommendation would change the county's investment policy and could limit which corporate issuers the county may consider for future investments. For proponents, the change would align county financial practice with stated sustainability goals and local public-health concerns. Opponents who addressed the committee at the hearing urged the panel to keep the item narrowly focused on fossil-fuel divestment and not broaden the policy to foreign-policy or broader corporate-ethics lists.

What staff said: County staff told the committee that the treasury pool had no investments in fossil-fuel companies since August 2025 and that any policy change would be routed to the Treasury Oversight Committee before the full Board of Supervisors. "For the treasury pool, none," a staff member said when asked whether the county currently held Chevron securities. Staff estimated the policy would reach the board for consideration in 2026.

What happened at the hearing: The committee accepted the consent calendar (which included item 11 on that calendar) by a recorded motion from Supervisor Susan Ellenberg, seconded by Ivan Duong; recorded votes in the transcript show Vice Chair Ellenberg and Chair Betty Young voting yes and the motion carrying.

What's next: The item will move to the Treasury Oversight Committee and then to the full Board of Supervisors, where the board will decide whether to amend the county's sustainable-investment policy.

Provenance: Public comment in support of divestment appears throughout the transcript during the consent-calendar public comment period (first public comment in support begins at 00:11:32). Staff statements about the absence of fossil-fuel investments and the next steps in the process appear later in the meeting during the consent-calendar discussion (00:32:40).