James Franey writes for the New York Post about a welcome shift in federal government policy.
President Trump’s top Wall Street cop moved Friday to kill a sweeping Biden-era climate rule that would force US firms to report on global warming risks and their own greenhouse gas emissions.
Paul Atkins, the chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission, blasted the climate change disclosure regulation as growth-strangling red tape that “exceeded our authority.”
“We need to stick to our knitting. Let the Environmental Protection Agency do their job and we stick to our job,” he said in an interview with Fox Business, casting the move as part of President Trump’s deregulation agenda that he vowed would “make IPOs great again.”
The 68-year-old lawyer said SEC disclosure rules “should avoid the practical effect of dictating corporate behavior, and be imposed only when the expected benefits justify the likely costs and burdens.”
Atkins added that Joe Biden’s brand of woke capitalism placed “substantial costs on public companies and shareholders not justified by informational benefits.”
The rule, drafted under Biden’s SEC chair, Gary Gensler, never took effect after a slew of lawsuits in 2024 by the US Chamber of Commerce and 25 GOP Attorneys General put the policy on ice.
Iowa Attorney General Brenna Bird was one of the loudest voices demanding that the law be scrapped, and brought several legal challenges to see the legislation axed.
“The radical climate mandate imposed by the Biden Securities and Exchange Commission was an outrageous act of overreach,” Bird said. “I am grateful the SEC is taking the important step to kill this.”
Atkins’ policy repeal, which could be formally rubber-stamped within the next year, marked a massive victory for corporate America, especially the banks, airlines, oil drillers, farmers and retailers who hated the idea of more paperwork.
