Every week it seems the White House has a new political gimmick intended to suggest opposition to high gasoline prices. But beneath the public relations, voters should observe the broad administrative campaign to make energy more expensive. As if Washington doesn’t already have enough environmental regulators, Biden appointees with no expertise on the subject and no authorization from Congress are attempting to enact climate rules that don’t even appear to be legal. That’s the warning from former leaders of the Securities and Exchange Commission, who must be wondering what on earth has become of the capital markets overseer they used to run.
Last week this column noted the pushback from Senate Republicans to a pending SEC rule that would impose on companies of all kinds vast new reporting requirements on global-warming risks. This is the Biden whole-of-government approach to discouraging the use of fossil fuels, forcing companies to publish more data that may have no impact on profitability but will be useful for climate activists seeking to attack business. Now in a new letter to the commission, former SEC chairmen Richard Breeden and Harvey Pitt and former SEC commissioners Philip Lochner, Richard Roberts and Paul Atkins explain how the pending rule would pollute company reports with politics:
