March, 21 2022, 01:22pm EDT

Climate Groups React to SEC Climate Disclosure Rule
Today the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) proposed amendments to its climate disclosure rule that would enhance and standardize businesses' climate-related disclosures for investors.
Member organizations of the Stop the Money Pipeline coalition and partners released the following statements in reaction to the news:
WASHINGTON
Today the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) proposed amendments to its climate disclosure rule that would enhance and standardize businesses' climate-related disclosures for investors.
Member organizations of the Stop the Money Pipeline coalition and partners released the following statements in reaction to the news:
"It is welcome news that the SEC is finally applying its long-held disclosure rulemaking practice to the financial risks posed by climate change, as many market participants of all types have requested. We are especially pleased to see a requirement for disaggregated reporting of carbon offsets, the use of which has long been rife with evidence of fraud, double-counting, dubious emissions-reductions claims, land rights violations, and other problems. Climate-related financial risks continue to increase, and market participants - including individuals, pension fund managers, and asset management firms - need to know how companies are approaching questions of supply chain emissions reductions, claims of avoided emissions via offsets, approaches to forest and biodiversity loss, how companies are interacting with communities defending ecosystems, and related issues. One area of concern is the treatment of Scope 3 emissions, which appears to set up a perverse incentive for firms to escape reporting requirements by not voluntarily mentioning Scope 3 in climate transition plans. Advocates will certainly be engaging with the SEC on this issue during the comment period" said Moira Birss, Climate and Finance Director at Amazon Watch
"Today the SEC took the long-overdue step of proposing a solution to the problem of undisclosed climate risks," said Ben Cushing, Campaign Manager for the Sierra Club's Fossil-Free Finance campaign. "Investors and the public deserve to know the climate-related risks that companies face and how they are being addressed. This is especially important given how many companies have made commitments to address their climate impact without disclosing the full scope of their emissions, the risks their own businesses face from climate change, or the relevant business plans to achieve their climate pledges. Understanding and mitigating growing climate risks is critical to building a stronger financial system and protecting investors and communities from climate-related shocks. We look forward to closely reviewing this proposal and offering suggestions to strengthen it, and we urge the SEC to move quickly to finalize the strongest rule possible."
"Today, the SEC finally moved toward catching up to global norms by applying its long-held rulemaking practices to the financial risks posed by climate change. Wall Street has been able to obscure its exposure to climate-related risks from investors for far too long. It was especially encouraging to see the SEC included a requirement for disaggregated reporting on carbon offsets, as they have been deployed in ways that have contributed to land rights violations, questionable emissions-reductions claims, and other issues. However, we're concerned that Scope 3 emissions disclosures are essentially left up to issuers to determine the materiality of these emissions. This shields issuers from liability for providing false information and allows firms to potentially omit disclosures for upwards of75% of climate emissions and as much as88% of the oil and gas sector's greenhouse gas emissions. These emissions have historically been concentrated in BIPOC communities, fueling generations of harm. We will push for the strongest possible rule during the comment period and raise our concerns with Scope 3 emissions, as well as the fact that environmental justice impacts are absent from the rule," said Erika Thi Patterson, Campaign Director for Climate and Environmental Justice, Action Center on Race and the Economy.
"The SEC's proposal is an important step toward protecting investors, ensuring fair and efficient markets, and supporting capital formation. With scientists providing ever starker warnings regarding the breadth and severity of climate-related harms, this proposal will give investors information they need to make informed investment decisions and allocate capital as they wish. Under today's proposed rule, the SEC moves toward bringing the U.S. in line with other countries already demanding disclosures, creating more transparency and leveling the playing field for companies who are serious about addressing climate-related risk. We urge the agency to carefully review suggestions for improvements to the rule and move quickly to adopt a rule that protects investors and markets," said Tracey Lewis, policy counsel at Public Citizen.
"Today's release is an important step in safeguarding US financial markets and protecting investors who have long asked for better climate-related disclosures from companies," said Kathleen Brophy, Senior Strategist with The Sunrise Project, "The Commission has proposed the disclosure of critical, decision-useful information like GHG emissions, but it also includes generous carve outs that more than address industry concerns around feasibility and reporting burden. We will focus our attention to these areas during the comment period in order to assist the Commission in finalizing the strongest possible rule."
"Shareholders deserve to understand and be protected from the increasing climate-related risks of the companies they are investing in, and today's reasonable proposal from the SEC is a good step towards better transparency and standardization." said David Shadburn, Government Affairs Advocate at the League of Conservation Voters. "We're glad to see the SEC meeting its mandate to protect investors and ensure well-functioning markets by taking climate risks seriously. Importantly, uniform climate risk disclosures will level the playing field and limit companies' ability to greenwash and make unsubstantiated emissions reduction pledges. We look forward to submitting comments in support of the strongest possible rule during the public comment period."
"There's no doubt that the climate crisis is an emerging and present threat to our financial institutions, and regulators need to step up to safeguard working families and investors.The Security and Exchange Commission's new draft rule for climate risk disclosure is an important first step to fulfill its mandate to protect investors and capital markets," said Evergreen Action Chief of Staff Lena Moffitt. "For too long, Wall Street has been allowed to conceal its exposure to climate-related risks from investors, leaving many Americans completely in the dark about a major threat to the long-term security of their life savings. By setting a clear standard for businesses to disclose data about their greenhouse gas emissions and climate risky assets, this rule will level the playing field and arm investors with vital information to protect their financial futures. We applaud Chair Gary Gensler for correcting this market deficiency as part of the SEC's ongoing mission to protect Americans. But this rule can and should be strengthened. Leaving it up to issuers to determine the materiality of Scope 3 emissions, and shielding those issuers from liability for providing false information, would allow issuers to omit the majority of their emissions from their disclosures. We will continue to engage through the comment period to ensure the final rule establishes a clear Scope 3 requirement, and look forward to the SEC's continued efforts to address the systemic threat to our economy posed by the climate crisis."
The Stop the Money Pipeline coalition is over 160 organizations strong holding the financial backers of climate chaos accountable.
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Oct 02, 2023
Calling on Norway to "live up to the responsibilities" it has as co-chair of an international panel on sustainable oceans, more than 30 climate and conservation organizations on Monday delivered a letter to nearly two dozen Norwegian embassies on all continents, intensifying global outcry over plans for deep-seabed mining in the Arctic.
The groups, including Greenpeace, Sustainable Ocean Alliance, and the Blue Climate Initiative, called on officials to abandon plans to open 281,000 square kilometers—an area nearly the size of the United Kingdom—to deep-sea mining, saying the world currently lacks "the robust, comprehensive, and credible scientific knowledge to allow for reliable assessment of impacts of deep-sea minerals extraction, including impacts on the planet's life-support systems and human rights."
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Greenpeace campaigners in Denmark shared on social media that on Monday, the letter was delivered by an activist dressed as a jellyfish.
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Human rights advocates on Monday condemned the continued failure of international officials to hold accountable the people responsible for journalist Jamal Khashoggi's murder—including those at the top of Saudi Arabia's government—as his former colleagues and loved ones marked the fifth anniversary of the brutal killing.
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Two years after the U.N.'s analysis of Khashoggi's killing, the U.S. released an intelligence report showing that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman personally approved the murder, in which 15 high-level agents flew to Istanbul to carry out the "capture or kill" operation.
The release of the report signaled to many at the time that the Biden administration was prepared to hold the Saudi government to account for killing Khashoggi, who wrote critically about the repressive regime as a Washington Post columnist.
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The group expressed gratitude for efforts by civil society groups and local governments to honor Khashoggi's memory and his family's fight for justice, including the unveiling of Jamal Khashoggi Square across from the Saudi Consulate in Los Angeles on Monday evening. Whitson and DAWN advocacy director Raed Jarrar were scheduled to deliver remarks.
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"How the court rules, and the relief it orders, will have enormous implications for the future of the agency, the validity of its past rules and enforcement actions, and its ability to continue protecting consumers."
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The corporate forces that have been gunning for the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau since its creation more than a decade ago are set to have their moment before the U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday, with the justices poised to hear a predatory payday lending group's challenge to the agency's funding mechanism on the second day of their new term.
The case—Consumer Financial Protection Bureau v. Community Financial Services Association of America, Limited—poses an existential threat to the CFPB, which has aggressively pursued corporate criminals under the leadership of director Rohit Chopra, who has been dubbed "Wall Street's most hated regulator."
Depending on the scope of the Supreme Court's decision, the outcome of the case could have consequences that reach far beyond the consumer agency's budget, potentially throwing the U.S. mortgage market into chaos and undermining other regulatory agencies and federal programs—including Medicare and Social Security.
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"The case also threatens the viability of other critically important agencies that have essentially the same funding structure that fuels the CFPB, including the Federal Reserve and the other banking regulators," Hall added.
Last year, 5th Circuit Court of Appeals—a federal panel composed entirely of judges appointed by former President Donald Trump—ruled that the CFPB's funding structure is unconstitutional. Unlike other federal agencies, the CFPB's funding comes from the Federal Reserve system, not congressional appropriations, making it less subject to annual political fights and right-wing austerity sprees.
The CFPB
appealed the ruling, which was authored by a judge who received donations from the banking industry when he was a Mississippi state lawmaker.
As The New York Timesobserved Sunday, the 5th Circuit didn't just take aim at the CFPB's funding mechanism.
"It concluded that all actions taken by the bureau in its 12-year existence should be 'rewound,'" the newspaper reported. "If the Supreme Court agrees that the bureau's funding is improper, it could, at minimum, force the agency to rely on congressional appropriations. Or the court could follow the 5th Circuit's suggestion and obliterate everything the agency has done to date."
The plaintiffs in the case, which brought their challenge in response to a CFPB rule targeting the abusive activities of payday lenders, contend that the bureau's funding structure violates the Constitution's appropriations clause because it falls outside the annual congressional appropriations process—a claim that legal experts say is both "wrong" and "incredibly dangerous."
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"Justices Thomas and Alito are shamelessly thumbing their noses at judicial ethics, living the high life on GOP billionaires' dime."
The Supreme Court is set to hear the case in the midst of a corruption crisis largely stemming from the activities of two right-wing justices: Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas.
Throughout 2023,
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Vishal Shankar, a senior researcher at the Revolving Door Project, noted in The American Prospect on Monday that "hedge fund billionaire Paul Singer—who took Alito on a luxury Alaska fishing trip—holds at least $90 million in financial companies overseen by the CFPB."
Shankar also pointed to Thomas' ties to the Horatio Alger Association, an
elite circle that the justice has granted extraordinary access to the Supreme Court.
"According to a review of the Alger Association's members conducted by the Revolving Door Project, at least 18 Alger members have either previously expressed an interest in weakening the CFPB or stand to gain from the court gutting the bureau," Shankar wrote, specifically naming Chamber of Commerce CEO Tom Donohue, Berkshire Hathaway executive Gregory Abel, and John Canning, co-founder of the private equity firm Madison Dearborn Partners.
CFPB v. CFSA is one of a number of cases before the Supreme Court that pose major threats to democracy, fundamental freedoms, and basic government functions, advocates say.
"The court is set to rule on a series of issues critical to our rights and our democracy, from gun violence prevention to the rights of Americans with disabilities, from racist gerrymandering to the ability of the government to protect consumers and enact the will of democratically elected representatives," the Just Majority coalition said in a statement Monday.
"While we do not know how any individual case will be decided," the coalition added, "we know we urgently need structural court reform, including a binding code of ethics and Supreme Court expansion, to make sure the court considers the rights of all Americans, not just billionaires who can buy special access.”
One of the pending cases,
Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo, threatens to gut the federal government's ability to constrain the destructive activities of fossil fuel companies and other corporations. The plaintiffs in the case have seen vocal support from right-wing, industry-backed groups, including the Cato Institute—which was co-founded by the billionaire oil tycoon Charles Koch.
Last month,
ProPublicarevealed that Thomas has attended at least two Koch network donor events during his tenure on the Supreme Court.
"The Roberts court is unchecked and unbalanced," Brett Edkins, managing director of policy and political affairs at Stand Up America, said Monday. "Justices Thomas and Alito are shamelessly thumbing their noses at judicial ethics, living the high life on GOP billionaires' dime. While they bask in luxury, the court's conservative supermajority is ruthlessly stacking the deck in favor of the wealthy and powerful, while chipping away at the freedoms of everyday Americans."
"As this term begins," said Edkins, "it's clear that it's time for a shake-up."
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