Overnight Energy & Environment

Energy & Environment — SEC issues climate-risk rule

by Rachel Frazin and Zack Budryk 03/21/22 07:23 PM CDT

Welcome to Monday’s Overnight Energy & Environment, your source for the latest news focused on energy, the environment and beyond. Subscribe here.

Today we’re looking at the SEC’s long-awaited rule on climate risk disclosure, how frayed U.S.-Saudi relations are affecting the energy crisis and a dire warning from the United Nations secretary general.

For The Hill, we’re Rachel Frazin and Zack Budryk. Write to us with tips: rfrazin@digital-stage.thehill.com and zbudryk@digital-stage.thehill.com.

Let’s jump in.

SEC proposes rules on emissions, climate risk

The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) proposed rules Monday that would force publicly traded companies to reveal the ways climate change could threaten their businesses and their own contributions to global warming.

The SEC voted 3-1 to propose long-awaited standards for how businesses traded on the stock market must reveal to investors the ways climate change affects their financial stability, along with their own roles in the production of greenhouse gasses. SEC Chairman Gary Gensler, a Democrat, along with Democratic Commissioners Allison Lee and Caroline Crenshaw, voted in favor of the rule, while SEC Commissioner Hester Peirce, the agency’s sole Republican, voted against it.

The regulations are open for public comment for 60 days before the SEC can finalize and enforce them, which could take several weeks or months.

What does it mean? Under the proposed rules, publicly traded companies will be required to explain in their regular disclosures to investors how certain climate-related risks can affect their finances. Potential risks include the rising frequency of severe weather, the potential costs of shifting away from fossil fuels and a company’s own efforts to limit its carbon footprint. Companies will be required to calculate these potential costs from data they already compile for regular disclosures to investors.

Companies will also be required to disclose their “Scope 1” emissions — the amount of greenhouse gas emissions they directly produce through their own business operations, such as manufacturing or mining — along with their “Scope 2” emissions, which come from the energy they purchase to keep their business running.

And what else? Companies would also be required to report their “Scope 3” greenhouse gas emissions, which include emissions from the goods and services purchased by the firm, if they have set public emissions reduction targets or if those emissions pose a direct financial risk to the business. Firms required to report Scope 3 emissions, however, will not face penalties if they come forward with mistakes or miscalculations in those figures.

The SEC has faced growing pressure from both Washington and Wall Street to set clear climate disclosure standards. Democratic lawmakers and environmentalist groups have pushed financial regulators for years to pay closer attention to the risks climate change poses to the financial system.

Some investment firms have also asked the SEC to set clear guidelines for disclosing climate risks amid rapidly growing investor interest in how businesses handle environmental, social and governance (ESG) issues.

“We have a responsibility to stay firmly focused on facts and science and their implications for financial markets. The pandemic, for example, provided a timely reminder that a crisis from outside financial markets can and often will send shockwaves directly through those same markets,” Lee said.

Read more from The Hill’s Sylvan Lane.

US-Saudi tensions complicate push for more oil

Strained relations between Saudi Arabia and the United States are complicating efforts by the Biden administration to convince Riyadh, the Middle Eastern country’s capital, to step up its oil production — which could provide some relief to consumers amid high prices exacerbated by the Russian war in Ukraine.

The U.S. government has been increasingly critical of the Saudis since the 2018 killing of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi, who was lured to and killed in the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul.

What’s the issue? Saudi Arabia’s human rights record and tensions over Yemen’s civil war, which have led to bipartisan criticism from Congress, have added to the strife.

It puts the administration in a difficult spot as it seeks to get Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates to increase production.

“I hate the fact that we have to ask the Saudis to produce more oil,” Rep. Tom Malinowski (D-N.J.), who was a top human rights official during the Obama administration, told reporters this week.

“I hate that the Biden administration has to figure out how to leverage our relationship with Saudi Arabia to get them to do that so that my constituents aren’t being squeezed at the pump,” he added.

Saudi Arabia’s control over strategic oil reserves may force the Biden administration, which is under pressure ahead of the midterms to provide some relief to consumers amid inflation and high gas prices, to reassess its strategy towards Riyadh.