(Bloomberg) — Senator Elizabeth Warren demanded the Securities and Exchange Commission speed up its push for new climate-change rules, saying its lack of progress is “unwarranted and unacceptable.”
In a letter sent Feb. 9, the Massachusetts Democrat told SEC Chair Gary Gensler that investors are being “left in the dark” about companies’ exposure to global-warming risks while the commission labors to craft a regulation. Disagreements between the agency’s three Democrats over the scope of the rule has bogged down the process, Bloomberg News reported Tuesday.
“These delays are unwarranted and unacceptable,” Warren wrote. “Every day of continued delay means that the SEC is failing to meet its mission.”
The missive is a rare rebuke of the SEC from a Democrat on Capitol Hill, where progressives have cheered Gensler’s expansive agenda to clamp down on cryptocurrencies, boost oversight of Wall Street and levy steep fines on corporations accused of wrongdoing. Pressure on the SEC to act quickly on climate change has become a focus for activists after another centerpiece of President Joe Biden’s climate policy, some $550 billion in tax credits and spending for clean energy, collapsed last year in the Senate.
Last July, Gensler said he’d “asked SEC staff to develop a mandatory climate risk disclosure rule proposal for the commission’s consideration by the end of the year.” That timeline has now slipped until at least March. The rule is expected to direct corporations to disclose details about their emissions and exposure to rising global temperatures. A spokesperson for Gensler declined to comment.
The conflict between Gensler and his fellow Democratic commissioners, Allison Herren Lee and Caroline Crenshaw, centers on how much information the agency can force companies to divulge without losing an almost certain legal challenge from the business lobby.
In her letter to Gensler, Warren said the SEC has “a responsibility to put in place the strongest rule to ensure that investors are adequately informed about the threats the climate crisis poses to their investments and the broader economy.” She asked Gensler to send her by Feb. 23 a “clear timeline” for when the rule proposal would be introduced and advanced, as well as a summary of any concerns around the agency’s powers to impose the new requirements.
(Updates with Gensler spokesperson declining to comment in fifth paragraph.)
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