US gives more time for climate disclosure input

The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is extending by nearly a month the deadline for public feedback on its proposed rule requiring publicly traded companies to uniformly disclose climate-related information.

The SEC said today it would extend the comment deadline until 17 June on the climate proposal, which would require publicly-traded companies to disclose their greenhouse gas emissions and climate-related risks. For companies that voluntary set emission reduction goals, the proposal would require specific data on their progress in achieving those targets.

SEC chairman Gary Gensler said the agency was offering more time in response to public feedback. Oil and gas groups, investors, states and others argued the initial comment deadline of 20 May was too short and asked to extend the deadline until mid-July or later.

The climate disclosure proposal has drawn intense criticism from oil groups and many Republicans, who say the SEC is straying too far from its core mission of protecting investors. They have criticized the proposal's estimated $6.4bn/yr in compliance costs and say the rule, alongside other federal initiatives, is making it harder for fossil fuel producers to attract investment.

"If you look at the reality, the context of this administration's attitude toward fossil, you have killed financing," US senator Bill Cassidy (R-Louisiana) said last week during a congressional hearing where he criticized the climate disclosure rule.

A group of law professors last month urged the SEC to scrap the rule, which they said was too costly and likely preempted by the US Environmental Protection Agency's authority over greenhouse gases. Oil groups have said the rule could run afoul of freedom of speech protections in the US Constitution, while warning its requirements could drive up energy costs for consumers.

"At a time of high gasoline prices when the world needs more, not less, American oil and natural gas production, this rule is uniquely ill-timed," the Independent Petroleum Association of American and dozens of other oil industry groups wrote last month.

Hundreds of publicly-traded companies have already started disclosing climate-related data and set emission reduction goals, in response to investor demands. SEC's Gensler has argued the proposal is needed to provide investors actionable and consistent information about public companies and their performance.

"Without clear rules of the road, different companies are disclosing different amounts of information, in different places and at different times," Gensler told an SEC advisory panel on 6 May.

By Chris Knight