Heritage Action announced it has launched a comment portal in response to Joe Biden’s Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) sweeping proposed rule that would require public companies to disclose not only their own greenhouse gas emissions but also the emissions of customers and suppliers.
“The Biden administration has weaponized the federal rulemaking process to unilaterally force woke policies like ESG on American families and businesses, but we have an opportunity to fight back through the public comment process,” Jessica Anderson, executive director of the organization told Breitbart News. “As has happened with other rules related to CRT, Title IX, and even vaccine mandates, citizens submitting comments can delay or prevent partisan rules from going into effect.”
“We have already seen a number of states protect their jobs, investments, and fossil fuel industries from the radical climate activists and political interests, but the fight on the federal level requires participation from Americans all across the country,” Anderson said. “Heritage Action’s comment portal will offer a streamlined process for every concerned citizen to have their voice heard loud and clear.”
The Associated Press reported on the proposed rule when the SEC announced it:
Under the proposals adopted on a 3-1 SEC vote, public companies would have to report on their climate risks, including the costs of moving away from fossil fuels, as well as risks related to the physical impact of storms, drought, and higher temperatures caused by global warming. They would be required to lay out their transition plans for managing climate risk, how they intend to meet climate goals and progress made, and the impact of severe weather events on their finances.
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The required disclosures would include greenhouse gas emissions produced by companies directly or indirectly — such as from consumption of the company’s products, vehicles used to transport products, employee business travel and energy used to grow raw materials.
The new portal explains what action visitors to the website can take:
Biden’s new financial regulation would require businesses to include information about climate change in their registration statements and annual reports. Businesses would have to assess how climate change could impact their business, operations, or financial condition. This would include determining the company’s greenhouse gas emissions–and even the emissions of businesses, including small businesses, that the company buys from or sells to. Companies would even have to disclose how often their boards talk about climate change.
This information would be used by activist investors to make it more expensive for businesses large and small to offer many of the products and services that make American life possible, including especially the production of reliable, affordable energy. It would give an immense advantage to “green” companies and would pressure more companies to “go green”, despite the impacts on the consumer. Companies, including small businesses, with low ESG scores could eventually find themselves denied loans, access to banking services, and even removed from major stock exchanges.
The burden of compliance could prove crushing to many businesses, forcing many to close shop or dedicate revenue to a phalanx of lawyers. The agency admits that the rule would single-handedly more than double the cost of compliance for regulated companies. Those costs would first be passed on to consumers in the form of higher prices and subsequently passed onto investors in the form of lower returns.
The Biden administration is advancing the ESG — the environmental, social, and governance rating of companies, including a company’s efforts to fight so-called climate change.
“ESG disclosures will pressure companies to side with the Left’s political agenda and take positions on policy issues that may have nothing to do with the company’s actual business activities,” Heritage Action said of its new campaign. “Ultimately, the regulation would simply feed an army of well-paid consultants, lawyers, accountants, and lobbyists who will provide compliance advice to large public companies subject to these rules, while the American worker and investor are left in the dark.”
The proposed rule has been published in the Federal Register and it must be available for the public to submit comments for a minimum of 30 days under Administrative Procedure Act rules. The comment period will close on June 17, 2022.
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