Carbon dioxide is not pollution, and the SEC is creating all sorts of problems for businesses over a scam
Should Amazon.com and Walmart be forced to tell investors how much pollution all their suppliers send into the atmosphere? Should ExxonMobil be responsible in accounting for the emissions that auto drivers rack up?
The Securities and Exchange Commission on Monday gave the nod, by a 3-1 vote, to preliminary approval of long-anticipated regulation on climate-change disclosure for publicly-traded companies, including what stock and bond-issuing companies do to prevent pollution and how they prepare for rising oceans, severe storms and more.
All eyes have been on whether the agency could force companies to regularly report the more complicated Scope 3 emissions that are out of their direct control.
The proposal around Scope 3 announced Monday calls for a phase-in for companies, a safe harbor for liability around the reporting, which could buttress banks in particular, and an exemption from such emissions disclosures for smaller companies. After collecting comments, the SEC’s proposal has included some of the compromise language urged by the business community and mostly Republican lawmakers.
Scope 3 inclusion was a stipulation embraced by environmental groups, some Democratic lawmakers and investing advisers who believe only the most stringent rulemaking will curb climate change in time, and to satisfy growing interest in environmental sensitivity among investors.
Why, exactly, is the SEC even getting involved and creating these rules? It seems a pretty big expansion of their power
(Investopedia) The Securities Exchange Act of 1934 (SEA) was created to govern securities transactions on the secondary market, after issue, ensuring greater financial transparency and accuracy and less fraud or manipulation.
All companies listed on stock exchanges must follow the requirements outlined in the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. Primary requirements include registration of any securities listed on stock exchanges, disclosure, proxy solicitations, and margin and audit requirements. The purpose of these requirements is to ensure an environment of fairness and investor confidence.
And now they’ll have to spend lots of time and money on something very silly
Opponents, meanwhile, have said the costly reporting demands of Scope 3 are untenable and likely set up a court challenge to the SEC.
Still, big moves in climate-change regulation have increasingly gained value as a centerpiece of the Biden administration’s efforts to slow the planet’s rising temperature, particularly as other White House clean-energy initiatives have stalled in Congress. A Gary Gensler-led SEC has made landmark climate change ruling part of its DNA, including in speeches.
There will be plenty of lawsuits, since you have 3 unelected bureaucrats determining that companies must comply with their cult beliefs, a serious overstretch of the SEC’s mandate. If they want to do something like that then it needs to be a vote in Congress by the duly elected Legislative Branch, rather than inventing a rule out of some obscure, unrelated language in other bills. How will this rule help at all?
For investors, most want to fairly price the stocks of companies that will be affected by climate change. Investors are trying to guess if a company’s products may be regulated in the future because of their impact on the climate, or if its supply chains may get more expensive over time. A company could be based in one part of the country, but source most of its raw materials in a region subjected to rising sea levels, for instance.
So they want to know if Government will screw with their investments with idiotic, scam related legislation? Huh.
Read: SEC’s Climate Scam Rule Could Force Companies To Account For “Pollution” They Didn’t Create »