Washington, D.C. — Today, Acting Securities and Exchange Commission Chair Mark Uyeda moved to roll back a rule that requires thousands of publicly-traded companies to provide investors with information about the impact of their businesses on our climate and the environment.
In response, Unlocking America’s Future Spokesperson Kyle Herrig said the following:
“The Trump administration’s directive to pause the SEC’s legal defense of its climate risk disclosure rule is nothing short of a politically-motivated attack on corporate transparency and accountability. This rule was designed to provide investors with the information they need to assess financial risks—risks that are already impacting consumers and businesses across the country. By siding with big business and special interests instead of the public, Uyeda is undermining the SEC’s core mission and putting politics over the financial security of millions of hardworking Americans and the progress we’ve made toward a clean energy economy.”
Additional Background:
- On the SEC climate disclosure rule: As the SEC noted in March 2024, it “adopted rules to enhance and standardize climate-related disclosures by public companies and in public offerings. The final rules reflect the Commission’s efforts to respond to investors’ demand for more consistent, comparable, and reliable information about the financial effects of climate-related risks on a registrant’s operations and how it manages those risks while balancing concerns about mitigating the associated costs of the rules.”
- On Trump SEC Chair nominee Paul Atkins: Atkins has written extensively in opposition to the SEC’s climate risk disclosure rule, including an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal in which he urged the agency to “retract and rethink its planned disclosure rule” in light of the Supreme Court’s ruling in West Virginia v. EPA. Atkins also joined a comment letter with other former SEC commissioners opposing the climate disclosure rule and spoke on a call with the American Petroleum Institute‘s Rolf Hanson, vice president for state government relations, and State Financial Officers Foundation members to discuss “the SEC Climate Rule proposal.”
- On SEC rule’s popularity among voters: Polling conducted by Morning Consult on behalf of Unlocking America’s Future after the SEC’s climate risk disclosure rule was finalized showed that two-thirds of voters (80 percent of Democrats, 65 percent of Independents, and 55 percent of Republicans) support the proposed SEC rule, and a majority of Americans support responsible investing.
