Earth Equity News

SEC Votes for More Disclosure About Climate Risks. By Siobhan Hughes, DowJones, January 27,2010. "A divided U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on Wednesday voted to encourage companies to disclose the effects of climate change on their business, bringing a partisan debate over global warming into a new arena. Democrats and Republicans split over approving the guidance in a 3-2 vote. Democrats portrayed the action as clarifying existing disclosure requirements... 'We are not opining on whether the world's climate is changing, at what pace it might be changing or due to what causes,' SEC Chairman Mary Schapiro said. But she said that the guidance 'will help to ensure that our disclosure rules are consistently applied, regardless of the political sensitivity of the issue at hand, so that investors get reliable information'... 'I can only conclude that the purpose of the release is to place the imprimatur of the commission on the agenda of the social environmental policy lobby, an agenda that falls outside of our expertise and beyond our fundamental mission of investor protection,' said Kathy Casey, a Republican commissioner."