NLPC Blasts SEC’S Proposed Climate-Risk Disclosure Rule ‘The SEC Is Not The Securities And Environment Commission’
Washington, DC
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June 20, 2022 02:38 PM Eastern Daylight Time
The National Legal and Policy Center (NLPC) blasted the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) for proposing a politically-driven rule that would require all U.S. companies registered with the SEC to compile and report the estimated impacts of climate change caused by their business operations and companies in their supply chain.
In its 17-page comment, NLPC argued that the rule exceeds the statutory authority of the SEC, is unworkable, unnecessary, duplicative of EPA requirements, based on questionable science, does not protect investors’ interest, and will have a costly economic impact on businesses, the United States economy and national security.
NLPC’s comments underscored its argument that the SEC is not the ‘Securities and Environment Commission’.
The proposed rule by the SEC, under the leadership of liberal activist Gary Gensler, is the latest in the Biden Administration’s efforts to promote ESG (Environment, Social and Governance) policies that they can’t get enacted into law by Congress, such as Senator Elizabeth Warren’s ‘Climate Risk Disclosure Act” bill which would essentially require the same reporting as the SEC rule, and the Green New Deal.
“Amid sky-high gas prices and rapid inflation, the Biden Administration should focus instead on addressing these pocketbook issues instead of attacking fossil fuels,” said Peter Flaherty, NLPC’s Chairman.
“While woke corporations, like General Motors, are free to voluntarily undertake climate-risk disclosures, they hypocritically ignore the fact that their electric vehicles are powered by coal-burning power plants, which may cause more carbon emissions than gas-powered vehicles, not to mention the impact of mining rare earth metals by child labor in Africa necessary to manufacture the batteries,” said Paul Chesser, NLPC’s Director of its Corporate Integrity Project who addressed the General Motors Board of Directors at its recent annual shareholder meeting.
“Congress did not authorize unelected and unaccountable SEC bureaucrats to mandate costly and vaguely defined climate-risk disclosure rules in an end-run around Congress’s proper role to debate and enact such significant legislation, which Senator Elizabeth Warren and her colleagues have failed to do,” said Paul Kamenar, NLPC’s counsel who filed the comments on behalf of NLPC.
NLPC will consider legal action to challenge the rule when it is promulgated, likely later this fall. For a copy of the comments filed by NLPC, please click here.
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NLPC’s Corporate Responsibility Project promotes integrity in corporate governance, including honesty and fair play in relationships with shareholders, employees, business partners, and customers. NLPC representatives have attended companies’ annual shareholder meetings to advocate the interests of stockholders and oppose petitions by activists who advance one-sided special interests supported by woke corporate management. NLPC also opposed SEC’s Nasdaq so-called Board Diversity Rule last year as an illegal quota and tokenism.
Founded in 1991, NLPC promotes ethics in public life and government accountability through research, investigation, education, and legal action.
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National Legal and Policy Center
Paul Kamenar
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