For years, Business Roundtable and the US Chamber of Commerce have opposed efforts to mandate corporate climate disclosure, expressing this opposition in comment letters to regulators, white papers, and public messaging. In 2024, both groups turned to the courts to advocate against climate disclosure rules finalized by the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).
These industry groups claim to represent the positions of American companies across all sectors in policy discussions. However, in opposing the SEC’s climate disclosure rules they seem to have adopted the position of only a select group of members, comprised of fossil fuel companies including ConocoPhillips, ExxonMobil, and Sempra1.
On March 6, 2024, the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) adopted final rules “to enhance and standardize climate-related disclosures.” On March 14, 2024, the US Chamber of Commerce (the Chamber) filed a petition to challenge the rules in the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals. Three months later, the Business Roundtable filed an amicus brief in the US Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals advocating for the Court to vacate the rules.
Other actors that have filed suit against the rules include oil and gas industry groups the Texas Alliance of Energy Producers and the Domestic Energy Producers Alliance, fracking companies Liberty Energy and Nomad Proppant Services, Republican state attorneys general, and Republican members of US Congress.
Business Roundtable has repeatedly opposed mandatory climate disclosure, asserting as early as 2020 that climate disclosures should be “voluntary and industry supported.” In a 2021 letter to the SEC, however, Business Roundtable appeared supportive of the Commission setting out rules governing climate disclosure, as long as the rules were flexible and provided a safe harbor from liability. When the SEC released its proposed rule in 2022, though, Business Roundtable announced it had “serious concerns” with the proposal and urged the Commission to revise and repropose the rule.
In March 2024, when the Commission released its final rule, Business Roundtable supported the removal of “some of the most troubling provisions in the original proposal” but suggested that “questions remain about several aspects,” and in April 2024 Business Roundtable “welcomed congressional scrutiny” of the rule. The “scrutiny” referenced here is congressional Republicans’ efforts to use the Congressional Review Act to overturn the rule, an effort that is still pending.
On June 24, 2024, Business Roundtable filed an amicus brief in the US Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals advocating for the Court to block the SEC’s climate disclosure rule. In its brief, Business Roundtable asserted that “the SEC lacks authority to issue a rule of this extraordinary breadth and scope,” and suggested that the rules “stretch the concept of materiality,” and “penalize thoughtful engagement with climate risk” by companies.
The Chamber has, in its own words, been “at the forefront of fighting” the SEC’s climate disclosure rule. Years before the rule’s introduction the Chamber was opposing the need for regulated corporate climate disclosure: in a 2019 press release the Chamber asserted that “Congress and the SEC should reject proposals for one-size-fits all disclosure mandates.”
After the rule was proposed in 2022, the Chamber wrote to the Commission in opposition to the proposal, suggesting it exceeded statutory authority and raised “serious constitutivional questions” by “violating the First Amendment.” The Chamber submitted several supplemental comment letters on the proposal, each bringing forth an additional explanation for its opposition to the rulemaking. In November 2022 the Chamber argued that the “major questions doctrine” outlined by the Supreme Court in West Virginia v. EPA “confirms the Commission’s lack of statutory authority” to bring the rules. In February 2023 it asserted that the assumption that environmental considerations are important to investment decisions “is not accurate,” and in December 2023 it cautioned the Commission against factoring California disclosure laws into its own decision making, stating that the laws “suffer serious legal flaws” and “burden interstate and foreign commerce.”
In addition to comment letters, per the SEC’s disclosures the Chamber met with the Commission 19 times between the rule’s introduction in June 2022 and finalization in March 2024. Representatives from the Chamber, in November 2023 congressional testimony, urged lawmakers to “exercise oversight of financial regulators” requiring climate disclosure and in December 2022 supported legislation that would limit the SEC’s authority to mandate climate disclosure. The Chamber has hosted webinars and produced research to assert that the SEC’s rules “impose costs” and are not necessary given the widespread nature of voluntary corporate ESG disclosure. Figure 3 shows the different targets of and avenues for the Chamber’s opposition.
Since the US Chamber’s initial lawsuit against the SEC rule on 14 March, which it filed alongside the Texas Association of Business and the Longview Chamber of Commerce, it has followed up with subsequent suits against the rulemaking. On 26 March it filed a motion requesting a stay of the rule, and on 12 April it filed a motion to intervene in environmental groups’ lawsuit2 against the rules. On 14 June, the US Chamber joined the National Center for Public Policy Research (NCPPR) in submitting a brief in the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals, again asserting that the SEC climate disclosure rule should be vacated.
The NCPPR describes itself as a “conservative think tank.” It has a history of climate denial, as recently as 2014 releasing a paper that asserted “the world isn’t warming,” and “anti-global warming laws hurt people.” In November 2023 NCPPR’s general counsel wrote “the decarbonization of world, or even western, economies just isn’t going to happen. Probably ever. And everything will be fine.” NCPPR’s Executive Board members include representatives from the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) and the Heritage Foundation, groups that have long advocated3 for rollbacks to climate policy.
Business Roundtable and the US Chamber’s opposition to the SEC climate disclosure rules is at odds with the positions of many of their corporate members, including some members of the executive board. Table 1 highlights where members have most strongly diverged from these groups’ strong opposition to the rule.
| Entity | Membership Status | Comments on SEC Climate Disclosure Rule |
|---|---|---|
| Apfel | Business Roundtable Board | “While we are of the view that the current, principles-based approach, anchored in materiality, generally strikes the right balance of information for a company’s annual reports and other periodic filings, we believe that approach alone does not go far enough in the fight against climate change … Apple, therefore, believes that the Commission should issue rules to require that companies disclose third-party-reviewed carbon emissions information to the public, covering all scopes of emissions, direct and indirect, including relevant emissions from a company’s entire value chain.” (2021 letter to SEC) |
| Capital Group | US Chamber | “We commend the Commission for its engagement in this important and complicated matter, and for what we believe is, on the whole, a balanced proposal ... While some investors believe it is premature to mandate Scope 3 GHG emissions disclosure, and we recognize the challenges involved in measuring the same, we strongly believe – as described more fully below – that larger companies should disclose this information to the extent material,” (Comment to SEC, June 2022) |
| Salesforce | Business Roundtable and US Chamber | “We sorely need a standard approach for companies to produce climate information that investors and markets need. That is what the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is working to create. … Now, it’s time for corporate America to vocally support a regulatory framework and close a critical gap between investment decisions and key insights into a company’s exposure to climate-related risks and positioning to succeed in the transition.” (Insight, June 2022) |
| TIAA | Business Roundtable Board | “One of our most important objectives is to advocate for enhanced disclosure of consistent, reliable climate-risk data from our portfolio companies. … we have engaged, and will continue to engage, with regulators and lawmakers in an effort to highlight the importance of climate data broadly to responsible investing goals and the need for a robust disclosure regime that mandates disclosure of that data from issuers. Our engagement efforts in 2022 have included the following: • Responding to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission’s proposed new climate disclosure requirements for public operating companies,” (2022 Climate Report) |
Figures 1 and 2 show the misalignment between the Business Roundtable and the US Chamber’s opposition to climate disclosure policies and the positions of some of their members4. From the groups’ positions on the far left side of the spectrum, it is clear that they appear to be taking the “lowest common denominator,” most oppositional position on disclosure policy, aligned only with a couple of members including ExxonMobil and ConocoPhillips.
Members’ positions along the spectrum are determined by their stances on climate disclosure policies at the SEC, in California, and in the EU (Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD)) to determine an overall position on mandatory disclosure. Where members have not engaged on one or more of these policies, their position is only determined by the policies on which they have engaged. Notably, in addition to its opposition to SEC disclosure rules, in January 2024 the Chamber brought a lawsuit against the California climate disclosure laws and in April 2023 asserted that it was trying to “ward off” the EU rules from taking effect. Business Roundtable does not appear to have engaged on the California or EU rules.
1Sempra’s subsidiaries include gas distribution companies SoCalGas and SDG&E
2The National Resources Defense Council and the Sierra Club brought lawsuits against the SEC rule in March 2024 asserting that the final rule should have required more disclosures, including Scope 3 emissions disclosure.
3https://www.desmog.com/american-legislative-exchange-council/ https://www.desmog.com/heritage-foundation/
4InfluenceMap tracks corporate membership to industry groups via companies’ own disclosure or reporting from industry groups. The US Chamber reports its board membership but not general membership, and the Business Roundtable reports both board and general membership
