CHARLESTON – West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey is spearheading a lawsuit that will challenge a new rule that would require companies to report climate-related risks.
Just hours after the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission approved the rule, Morrisey held a press conference to announce West Virginia and Republican AGs from nine other states have filed a lawsuit to stop the rule that would standardize climate disclosures from companies about greenhouse gas emissions, weather-related risks and other issues.
The 896-page petition for review was filed in the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit. It asks the court to review the final SEC action taken on “The Enhancement and Standardization of Climate-Related Disclosures for Investors.” The 11th Circuit covers Alabama, Florida and Georgia.
“This suit deals with the rule released earlier today,” Morrisey said during his press conference. “We’ve been waiting for this for a very long time.”
The SEC idea was first proposed in 2022, but Republican-led states say it another example of the Biden administration’s overreach.
The SEC voted 3-2 to approve the climate disclosure rule, which will go into effect in 2026. Expecting pushback from GOP states, the final SEC rules would allow larger companies to decide if emissions from their own operations and the power they purchase is needed by investors.
“Petitioners will show that the final rule exceeds the agency’s statutory authority and otherwise is arbitrary, capricious, an abuse of discretion, and not in accordance with law,” the petition states. “Petitioners thus ask that this court declare unlawful and vacate the commission’s final action.”
Morrisey called the rule “wildly in defect and illegal and unconstitutional.”
“Once again, this administration has gone on the attack against America’s energy industry” Morrisey said during his press conference. “But this time, they’re not using the EPA as their tool of choice. This is a backdoor move to undermine the energy industry.
“We believe we’ll prevail.”
Morrisey said the administration is using companies like a puppeteer.
“Biden’s administration is once again placing its agenda onto an unwilling public by forcing unrelated federal agencies and private companies to press its anti-energy agenda,” he said. “This rule also appears to have some serious first amendment problems as well. We have concerns with compelled speech. This is setting up a framework where the federal agency is forcing companies to put forth initiatives and disclose information that it might not normally want to do.
“This is yet another attempt to advance an agenda without statutory authority, and I, for one, am not going to let that happen.”
During a television appearance after Morrisey’s press conference, SEC Chairman Gary Gensler said the legal action is “part of our democracy.”
“We endeavor to do things within the law and how the courts interpret the law,” he said, noting the SEC aimed to take into account the economics of climate disclosures, public feedback and the Administrative Procedure Act that governs agency rulemaking.
West Virginia and Georgia are co-leading the petition for review, joined by Alabama, Alaska, Indiana, New Hampshire, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Wyoming and Virginia.