SEC Proposal Pulls the Plug on Climate Disclosures Public Comment DEADLINE August 3, 2026

May 31, 2026

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by Jean Chemnick (Politico Pro Greenwire) The Securities and Exchange Commission called the Biden-era rule “overly burdensome and costly." -- The Securities and Exchange Commission issued a proposal Friday (May 29, 2026) to undo Biden-era requirements that publicly traded companies provide a yearly accounting of their climate risks and mitigation strategies.

The SEC in a statement called the 2024 climate disclosure rule “overly burdensome and costly” and said it was inconsistent with the commission’s commitment to focus on “its core mandate.”

“SEC disclosure obligations should comply with the Commission’s statutory authority, be guided by materiality as the North Star, avoid the practical effect of dictating corporate behavior, and be imposed only when the expected benefits justify the likely costs and burdens,” said SEC Chair Paul Atkins in a statement on the draft rule’s release.

The SEC will take public comment on its proposal for 60 days after it is published in the Federal Register.

Prior to his appointment by President Donald Trump to head the Wall Street regulatory agency, Atkins criticized the Biden administration’s amendment of a 1930s law to require publicly traded companies to detail their vulnerability to climate change and plans to address it. It also required some firms to disclose their greenhouse gas emissions. READ MORE

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SEC Proposes Rescission of Climate-Related Disclosure Rules (Securities and Exchange Commission)
SEC proposes rule rescinding Biden-era climate risk disclosures (ESG Dive)
What the SEC climate repeal means to investors -- Experts say standard disclosure helped the market price in climate risks. (E&E News Climatewire)

Excerpt from Securities and Exchange Commission: The Securities and Exchange Commission today proposed the rescission of overly burdensome and costly rules that require companies to provide certain climate-related information in their registration statements and annual reports. The Commission’s proposal focuses on returning the agency to its core mandate – in line with its legal authority – and restoring a materiality-focused approach to securities regulation.

“SEC disclosure obligations should comply with the Commission’s statutory authority, be guided by materiality as the North Star, avoid the practical effect of dictating corporate behavior, and be imposed only when the expected benefits justify the likely costs and burdens,” said SEC Chairman Paul S. Atkins in a statement.

The Commission in March 2024 approved amendments to its rules under the Securities Act of 1933 and Securities Exchange Act of 1934 to mandate highly specific and granular disclosure from virtually all public companies about climate-related matters such as greenhouse gas emissions, management of climate-related risks, and the financial statement effects of severe weather events.

On April 4, 2024, the Commission stayed the climate disclosure rules pending completion of consolidated litigation in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit. On March 27, 2025, the Commission voted to end its defense of the final rules. On Sept. 12, 2025, the Eighth Circuit issued an order holding the consolidated petitions for review in abeyance until such time as the Commission reconsiders the challenged rules by notice-and-comment rulemaking or renews its defense of the climate disclosure rules.

The Commission is now proposing to rescind the climate disclosure rules in their entirety because they exceed the scope of the agency's statutory authority. Even if it had authority to adopt such final rules, the Commission believes there are independent, compelling policy reasons to rescind them entirely:

They are unnecessary and inconsistent with a registrant-specific, materiality-based approach to disclosure that best serves the interests of registrants and investors.
They stray well beyond the policy concerns of the federal securities laws.
They impose substantial costs on public companies and their shareholders that are not justified by the informational benefits they may provide to some investors.
They are at odds with the Commission’s policy objectives of facilitating capital formation and promoting public company status.

The public comment period will remain open for 60 days following the publication of the proposing release in the Federal Register. READ MORE

Excerpt from ESG Dive: The SEC first proposed the climate risk disclosure rule in 2022, and it was approved nearly two years later by a 3-2 vote. The rule faced multiple lawsuits after its approval, with challenges consolidated into the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals, and the agency stayed the regulation while they played out.

After initially proposing to require all public companies to disclose their scope 1, scope 2 and scope 3 emissions, the final rule would have only included scope 1 and scope 2 emissions reporting for a more limited group of public filers.

Following President Donald Trump’s inauguration, the SEC first looked to withdraw the agency’s defense of the rule in court, but the federal judge overseeing the case said in September that “it is the agency’s responsibility” to determine whether to rescind, repeal, modify or continue defending the final rules. An SEC spokesperson told ESG Dive earlier this month that the agency staff was working on the rescission proposal at the direction of SEC Chair Paul Atkins.

“SEC disclosure obligations should comply with the Commission’s statutory authority, be guided by materiality as the North Star, avoid the practical effect of dictating corporate behavior, and be imposed only when the expected benefits justify the likely costs and burdens,” Atkins said in Friday’s press release.

The agency’s rescission said the costs imposed on companies by the 2024 rule “are not justified by the information benefits they may provide to some investors.” However, nonprofit Better Markets said in a Friday press release that companies’ climate-related risks “matter to their bottom line, and investors deserve to know about those risks and then weigh their significance for themselves.”

“This action threatens to leave investors in the dark,” Benjamin Schiffrin, the nonprofit’s director of securities policy, said in the release. “The risks public companies face matter to investors, and the SEC’s proposal fails to acknowledge that climate-related risks are no exception.”

SEC Commissioner Hester Peirce said in a Friday statement that she understands “why some people strongly support” the agency’s climate disclosure rule. She said that “many people believe that climate change is an existential threat that justifies commandeering any tool,” including corporate disclosure frameworks.

“Designing securities disclosure to be a lever of change, however, exceeds the authority Congress gave to the SEC,” Peirce said. ”Adhering to a merit-neutral, materiality-centric disclosure framework is not only consistent with the SEC’s statutory authority, but also good for the health of our capital markets.”

Despite the proposed rescission of the SEC’s disclosure rules, climate disclosure regulations remain on the books in California and a growing number of global jurisdictions. READ MORE

Excerpt from E&E News Climatewire:

But advocates for sustainable investing and asset managers alike disagree.

They say investors need a clear picture of how companies are navigating and planning for disruptions to their businesses and supply chains from global warming and policies to address it. They say that repealing the SEC rule will make those disclosures more ad hoc and uneven and will prevent markets from pricing in emerging climate risks.

“It’s just going to leave investors worse off in allocating their money, which rewards management of certain companies that would prefer to have investors less informed, but it disadvantages other companies,” said Amanda Fischer, policy director at Better Markets. “So, from a marketwide perspective, it just makes capital allocation less efficient.”

A hotel chain might have assets in areas that are vulnerable to sea-level rise. A shipping company may see disruptions when the Panama Canal reduces traffic to conserve water during a drought. Agriculture companies might see labor disruptions when extreme heat forces them to cut workers’ hours. Insurance companies might see rising property and casualty insurance payouts that force them to raise rates or exist certain markets.

“We have a system of standard finance reports — balance sheets, income statements,” said Steven Rothstein, CEO of the sustainable investment advocacy group Ceres. “And that way, if you’re an investor, you can compare one company to another by looking at the same kind of metrics.”

The SEC, however, said the Biden-era rules were “unnecessary” and imposed costs on public companies and their shareholders that were “not justified by the informational benefits they may provide to some investors.”

In securities law, information is “material” if it is likely to affect an investor’s assessment of a company’s value or its future risks and earnings. Companies that trade publicly are required to disclose material information.

...

Wellington Management, an independent investment management firm, called climate risk disclosure “critical” to its “ability to make informed investment decisions on behalf of our clients.”

“Because climate change will continue to profoundly impact society, economies and markets, investors need more information to better price these risks and fully assess the value of an issuer’s securities,” it stated. “Currently, our evaluation of the positive and negative impacts of climate change on issuers is limited by inadequate information and the absence of a standardized framework for disclosure.”

The SEC did not respond to requests for comment, including more information about why the commission deemed climate risks to be immaterial. The commission is currently taking public comment on its proposal to jettison the disclosure rule until Aug. 3.

The May 29 repeal proposal was long expected.

SEC Chair Paul Atkins made it clear he wants to drop the requirements.

During his Senate confirmation hearing last year, Atkins said that rules like the one on climate disclosure were a liberal attempt to use “other people’s money to try to influence corporations through the distortions of the corporate governance process.”

“So that will end,” he promised the Senate Banking Committee.

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If the rule is rescinded or overturned in court, that won’t be the end of climate disclosure by public companies.

Environmental disclosure nonprofit CDP reported last year that up to 80 percent of S&P 500 companies already disclose climate information. And a broad swath of U.S. companies may be covered under current and pending climate disclosure rules in jurisdictions in which they operate, like the European Union and California.

Fischer, who served as SEC chief of staff during the Biden administration, said the recission would not relieve public companies of the legal requirement to disclose all material information — including that regarding climate change.

But experts say the quality and format of voluntary disclosures has varied. READ MORE