September 13, 2004

Funding Terror 3: Tennessee Officials Refuse Data Request

This week's Nashville Business Journal reports on the refusal by officials with the Tennessee Consolidated Retirement System to provide detailed data on the pension fund's stock and bond investments to the Center for Security Policy, which recently produced a detailed study showing the public employee pension funds are heavily invested in U.S. and foreign corporations that do business in countries that support terrorism.

Tennessee was one of six states that did not provide information on public pension investments, but no sinister intent lies behind the lack of participation, says Steve Curry, assistant to state treasurer Dale Sims.

"We get hundreds of survey requests during the year," says Curry. "We provide information all the time, but we like to have a general idea of what it will be used for."

In this case, he says, the caller from the Center for Security Policy did not provide enough information for the state to comply with the request.

Frank Gaffney, president of the center, says center staffers tried repeatedly to get the investment information from the Tennessee state treasurer's office. He says he isn't sure if his office filed a Freedom of Information Act request.

Curry says there was no FOIA request filed, but no matter: "This information is only available to Tennesseans," he says.

As I reported here on August 19, I was able to secure a copy of the TCRS' report as of June 30 of its stock and bond holdings. It had been my intent to delve into that data and report details to you, but I have so far been too swamped to do so. Because the issue is so important - and because, if Tennessee's pension funds are invested similarly to those of the 87 other pension funds investigated by the CSP for its report, between $3.3 and $5.1 of Tennessee taxpayers' money is currently invested in companies that do business in terrorism-supporting countries and sometimes with terror-supporting regimes - I plan to scan the information provided to me by the TCRS and make it available to you here soon.

In the meantime... NBJ and its reporter, Holly Dolloff, deserve praise for reporting on a story that the local dailies have, so far, ignored. It is an issue that deserves a full airing and debate here in Tennessee, just as it is beginning to receive in other states. Arizona's legislature, for example, has already ordered a review of that state's pension investments that support terror-supporting countries.

Previous posts on this subject:
Funding Terror - August 18
Funding Terror 2 - August 19
Does Tennessee's State Pension Fund Help Fund Terror? - August 16