SEC set to launch landmark climate rule, sparking legal blitz - E&E News by POLITICO
SEC set to launch landmark climate rule, sparking legal blitz - E&E News by POLITICO
Wall Street’s top regulator is poised to greenlight a groundbreaking rule aimed at uncovering new climate-related information from corporate America, capping a pressure campaign that has fractured Washington for two years.
The Securities and Exchange Commission will vote Wednesday to order thousands of public companies to begin divulging more details about the climate risks they face, the costs of severe weather events and, in some cases, their greenhouse gas emissions. The rule represents one of the biggest overhauls of U.S. corporate reporting in years and is a legacy-defining effort for SEC Chair Gary Gensler.
Yet the lobbying campaign and threats of litigation against the measure will result in a scaled-back final rule that lacks many of the sweeping disclosure requirements that were in the original proposal of March 2022 and have rankled the business world. The rule will not offer investors as deep a look into companies’ carbon footprints as planned — including the most controversial proposal covering their vast supply chains — a priority for many of President Joe Biden’s climate allies.
Despite the rollbacks, the SEC is still expected to face legal and legislative challenges over the rule. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce is likely to sue, and Republicans in Congress are vowing to try to overturn it. The changes in the rule could also fan friction on the left for Gensler’s SEC, with many backers already expressing dismay.
Related Knowledge Center: Climate legislation
The federal government and states are in the process of implementing two laws — the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act and the Inflation Reduction Act — an investment of more than a trillion dollars to address climate change.