The roller coaster journey of the SEC’s rules on public company reporting of climate-related risk has reached another valley, though experts tell CCI’s Jennifer L. Gaskin that the ride isn’t over yet.
As many had expected since Donald Trump’s return to the White House and Paul Atkins’ return to the SEC, the commission formally announced May 29 that it had begun the process to rescind rules on certain climate-related reporting by public companies. A 60-day public comment period began June 3 and will end Aug. 3.
The climate rule, proposed in 2022 before a scaled-back version was formally adopted in 2024, would have required all SEC registrants to report certain material climate-related risks in annual reports and registration statements. It also required disclosure of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions data by a smaller number of registrants.
Immediate court challenges followed, and the commission stayed the effectiveness of the rule just a month after issuing it. In 2025, just before Atkins began his chairmanship, the Trump Administration stopped defending the rule in court, presumably rendering it moot for the remainder of Trump’s second stay in the White House before moving to formally rescind it.
The US Chamber of Commerce was among the first to challenge the rules in court, and it issued a…
