Democrats in SEC Overstep Their Authority Forcing Companies to Post Global Warming Risks

They are at it, again. This time it is the Democrats of the SEC that are trying to over reach in the name of global warming:

A politically divided Securities and Exchange Commission voted on Wednesday to make clear when companies must provide information to investors about the business risks associated with climate change.

The commission, in a 3 to 2 vote, decided to require that companies disclose in their public filings the impact of climate change on their businesses — from new regulations or legislation they may face domestically or abroad to potential changes in economic trends or physical risks to a company.

Chairman Mary L. Schapiro and the two Democrats on the commission supported the new requirements, while the two Republicans vehemently opposed them.

“I can only conclude that the purpose of this release is to place the imprimatur of the commission on the agenda of the social and environmental policy lobby, an agenda that falls outside of our expertise and beyond our fundamental mission of investor protection,” Republican commissioner Kathleen L. Casey said.

Ed Morrissey of Hot Air analyzes this new development perfectly in his post:

Clearly, Casey correctly diagnoses the Democrats’ intentions on this point.  They want to highlight the potential damage that some corporations do through carbon emissions, while highlighting the benefits from others who play along on AGW.  Putting this in the jurisdiction of the SEC is a two-fer for the Obama administration — they can claim regulatory gains on both AGW and Wall Street.

But this may hold the potential for enormous backfire.  With the cap-and-trade legislation still on the docket, all of these corporations will have to forecast for higher energy prices, more restrictive manufacturing and service standards, and the costs of retrofitting.  The Obama administration and Democrats in Congress have consistently and drastically underestimated the impact of their bills on the private sector.  Now, by forcing companies to analyze the impact of their environmental agendas on their bottom lines, the American public can get a much clearer and much less optimistic take on cap-and-trade and carbon-tax regulations.  Because those reports will be part of the public record, analysts can compile a daunting picture of the burdens the Democratic agenda will create on private business and economic growth.

This effort still should have been killed as a ridiculous overreach on regulation.  Now that the SEC has forced the matter, their Democratic allies will shortly have reason to regret it.

The SEC is supposed to regulate and police Wall Street not carbon emissions. That is the job of Congress to pass bills like that. All this does is set up the corporations that use carbon-based energy to be demonized by the left and will attempt to shame them into turn to less efficient means of energy production, which will in turn raise energy prices, anyway. The Democrats are trying to sneak cap-and-trade through the back door. It should not go unnoticed by the American people.