Boozman, Braun, Lucas reintroduce bill to exempt farmers from SEC climate plan
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| Sen. John Boozman, R-Ark., ranking member on the Senate Agriculture Committee, Sen. Mike Braun, R-Ind., and Rep. Frank Lucas, R-Okla., on Monday reintroduced the Protect Farmers from the SEC Act in both chambers. The bill would exempt farmers and ranchers from the SEC’s climate disclosure proposal, which the lawmakers said “would require all public companies to disclose GHG emissions from operations a company owns or controls; from the generation of purchased electricity, steam, heat or cooling that is consumed by company operations; and, if material, indirect GHG emissions that occur in the upstream and downstream activities of a registrant’s value chain.” |
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| “All it takes is a basic understanding of how agriculture works to see how misguided this proposal is — particularly when it comes to the so-called ‘value chain’ rules,” Boozman said. “The SEC can claim compliance will fall to the publicly traded corporations the SEC oversees, but the reality is it will be up to America’s family farmers and ranchers who will have to keep up with an unprecedented amount of unnecessary paper work. “Our farmers and ranchers are struggling with record high input costs, supply chain bottlenecks, labor shortages, drought and other natural disasters. Yet, the administration, with its never-ending focus on climate change, wants to bury them with reams of paperwork as well,” Boozman said. |
| “Since I’ve been in the Senate, I’ve been a leading voice for the climate benefit of farming, but this SEC regulation was drafted to meet out-of-touch climate metrics, not to meet reality,” Braun said. “I’ve heard from countless Hoosier farmers who are worried about what this regulation means for their farms and their livelihoods.” |
| “The SEC’s efforts to use financial regulation to implement a climate agenda would hinder the ability of American farmers and ranchers to compete in global markets and creating onerous compliance requirements for operations with few or no employees,” Lucas said. “Nevertheless, federal securities laws already require publicly traded companies to disclose material risks to investors, the SEC’s ill-advised climate disclosure rule undermines the materiality standard for environmental policy purposes. ”The bill does not address the ESG requirements that private companies may place on their suppliers without government direction. Agribusiness executives have said that with or without government direction they are under pressure from investors and customers to provide ESG information. The Protect Farmers from the SEC Act is backed by agriculture organizations including the American Farm Bureau, National Pork Producers Council, National Cotton Council, USA Rice, American Soybean Association, U.S. Cattlemen’s Association, National Council of Farmer Cooperatives and the National Potato Council. |
