The SEC and Climate Change

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission issued interpretive guidance on Wednesday, January 27, to require publicly traded companies to disclose the impact on the company's business of climate change or legal developments related to climate change.  The interpretive guidance is not itself a rule, but rather the Commission's official interpretation of existing disclosure regulations.  (See http://www.sec.gov/news/press/2010/2010-15.htm for the Commission's statement on the interpretive guidance.)

The Commission voted to issue the guidance on a 3-2 vote, with the two Republican commissioners voting against it.  Also, Congressman Joe Barton (R-Texas), the ranking Republican on the House Energy and Commerce Committee, and Congressman Greg Walden (R-Oregon) sent a strongly worded letter to the Commission before the vote questioning the Commission's authority to issue the guidance.  On the one hand, the majority stressed that the guidance is not an opinion on whether climate change is occurring or why, but rather that disclosure rules should be "consistently applied."  On the other, the Republicans complained that the Commission was delving into an area in which it had neither statutory authority nor expertise, and, in the words of one of the dissenting Republican commissioners, the guidance affirms "the agenda of the social and environmental policy lobby."
 
The sharp disagreement over the guidance is yet one more symptom of the politicization of climate change issues in the United States.