Impromptu Questions on the SEC ’s Climate Risk Proposal, Part 2

C. Wallace DeWittContinuing this week ’s series of questions for the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on the recentrule proposal to enhance and standardize climate ‐​related disclosures for investors:Did anyone ask retail investors?The SEC and its commissioners and senior officers are always at great pains to signal their solicitousness toward the “retail investor,” or “Mrs.& Mr. 401k, ” as former Chairman Jay Clayton enjoyed saying. Yet the section of the proposing release entitled “The Growing Investor Demand for Climate‐​Related Risk Disclosure and Related Information” is entirelysilent as to whether and to what extent the proposal stands to benefit retail investors, or even whether theordinary investor cares one way or the other about,inter alia, Scope 3 greenhouse gas emissions. (Arecent survey of investor sentiment conducted by FINRA would seem to provide some evidentiary support for the notion that investors do not care all that much just yet.)A Ctrl ‑F search of the release reveals that the phrase “retail investor” occurs but three times across 140 pages, twice in the footnotes and once in a glancing reference in the cost ‐​benefit analysis section. Rather, the release focuses on what “major institutional investors, which collectively have trillions of dollars in investments under management” are perceived by the SEC staff to desire, which is a rather different matter. Indeed, a major front in th...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - Category: American Health Authors: Source Type: blogs