The move by Trump administration financial regulators to roll back climate disclosure rules could leave big companies with a more onerous task ahead in reporting their carbon footprints to shareholders.
The Securities and Exchange Commission said on Friday it will withdraw a rule designed during the Biden administration requiring most public companies to disclose climate-related risks. The decision isn’t a surprise, and doesn’t mark an immediate change for corporate compliance officers, since the rule was on hold pending litigation against it.
But similar requirements are moving ahead in California, New York, and the EU, meaning that companies will now face a “patchwork” of regulations instead of one federal rule, Taylor Pullins, a partner in the global environmental practice at law firm White & Case told Semafor. The pullback was only partially political, Pullins said; many companies had argued that even for those concerned about climate change, the rule was overly prescriptive, covered emissions over which companies have little direct control, and was redundant, since firms are already required to disclose any material risks. Still, under a future Democratic administration, “I think it could likely return,” Pullins said. “There are some chapters yet to be written in the story of federal regulation of climate disclosure.”