Dozens of residents and local organizations urged the Santa Clara County Finance and Government Operations Committee on Nov. 6 to advance a Sustainability Commission recommendation to exclude new or renewed fossil fuel investments from the countytreasury pool and to consider broader divestment from companies alleged to be complicit in human rights abuses.

"Taxpayer dollars in this county are still being invested in companies like Chevron," said Musa Tariq of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, asking the committee to "move the item forward with a positive recommendation." Multiple speakers linked fossil-fuel investments to local health harms and to alleged human-rights abuses abroad, and several named specific companies they urged the county to avoid including Chevron, Exxon, Caterpillar, Palantir, Apple, Intel, Microsoft and Dell.

Supporters included climate and labor groups. Mark Roseman of 350 Silicon Valley told the committee the resolution is "a small language change" to the countysustainable investment policy and urged supervisors to follow cities that have divested. SEIU steward Philip Nguyen and student and youth climate advocates also urged the committee to forward the recommendation with a positive recommendation.

Some speakers asked the county to go further than the Sustainability Commission asked, calling for divestment from any company they said was complicit in genocide or human-rights abuses. Others asked the committee to keep the conversation narrowly focused on the investment-policy language put forward by the commission to avoid injecting foreign-policy debates into local fiduciary decisions.

County staff and committee members noted process constraints and next steps. James (county staff) told the committee the county no longer has fossil-fuel holdings in its treasury pool as of August 2025 and that any policy change must go to the Treasury Oversight Committee before the full Board of Supervisors. "This will probably be in front of the board sometime in 2026," he said.

The committee approved the consent calendar, which included item 11, by voice vote (motion by Supervisor Susan Ellenberg; second by Ivan Duong). Chair Betty Young and Vice Chair Ellenberg recorded "yes" votes. That action forwards the Sustainability Commission recommendation to the Board of Supervisors for further consideration and required hearings on Treasury Oversight and the full board.

What happened next: Committee members and staff said the county will take the item through the treasury oversight review and to the full board. The committee did not adopt new policy language or a binding investment prohibition at the Nov. 6 meeting; it forwarded the item as part of the consent calendar.

Why it matters: The county manages a large pooled treasury for local governments and special districts; changes to investment policy affect how public dollars are invested and whether the county will seek to screen holdings on environmental or human-rights grounds. The item will return for additional committee and board-level review before any binding policy change.

Provenance: Public comment and staff responses are recorded in the meeting transcript.