SEC Urged to End Trump Push to Eliminate Climate Disclosure Rules for Major Companies

Consumer and environmental advocates on Monday called for the Securities and Exchange Commission to end its push to rescind rules requiring companies to disclose risks related to climate change.

The SEC first adopted the climate disclosure rules in 2024, with the commission describing them as a response to "investors’ demand for more consistent, comparable, and reliable information about the financial effects of climate-related risks on a registrant’s operations."

But in June, the SEC—now under the leadership of President Donald Trump-appointed chair Paul Atkins—proposed scrapping the rules, which the commission described as "an overreach of statutory authority and unsound policy."

Elyse Schupak, climate policy advocate for Public Citizen, said that ending the disclosure rules would reflect "the desire of Paul Atkins’ SEC to ignore growing financial risks from climate change and to deprive investors of essential information."

"For polluting industries that seek to downplay their role driving the climate crisis and their exposure to related risks, finalizing the proposed rule would be a victory," said Schupak. "The SEC should withdraw this proposal as it contradicts the commission’s responsibility to facilitate transparency for investors and promote well functioning capital markets."

Alex Martin, climate finance policy director at Americans for Financial Reform, noted that many investors spoke up in favor of the disclosure rules when they were first proposed because they saw climate risk assessment as a valuable information to have before making major financial decisions.

If the new proposal is finalized, Martin added, it "will hurt workers saving for retirement by depriving people of information needed to assess companies' financial risks due to climate change—and by endangering other critical disclosures as well."

Benjamin Schiffrin, director of securities policy for Better Markets, similarly argued that scrapping the SEC rules "will deprive investors of material information essential to making informed investment decisions."

"There can no longer be any serious dispute that the climate-related risk companies face matters greatly to their future prospects," Schiffrin emphasized. "An SEC that was serious about protecting investors would be facilitating investors’ access to this information, not preventing them from understanding how climate-related risks are impacting the companies in which they invest their hard-earned money."

Janet Ranganathan, managing director at the World Resources Institute, said repealing the rule was particularly nonsensical at a time when the country is dealing with multiple climate-related disasters, including wildfires in the Pacific Northwest.

"Rescinding the rule would not eliminate climate risk from the market—it simply blindfolds investors to it, at their own expense," said Ranganathan. "Climate risk should not become the exception to smart financial management simply because it has become politically contentious."