YOUR TEXAS AGRICULTURE MINUTE

Congress takes aim at harmful SEC proposal

By Gary Joiner
Publisher

The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) last year proposed making public companies provide certain climate-related information in their financial statements.

The proposed rule could generate substantial costs and liabilities for farmers and ranchers. That’s because farmers and ranchers provide almost every raw product that adds value to a company’s supply chain, which the company must report under the proposed rule.

The potential impacts to farmers and ranchers are not small. The reporting requirements could mean disclosing private and personally identifiable data.

U.S. Sen. John Boozman from Arkansas and Congressman Frank Lucas from Oklahoma are taking aim at the SEC rule. They’ve introduced the Protect Farmers from the SEC Act (S. 391 and HR 1018).

The Senate and House bills would prohibit the SEC from requiring an issuer of securities to disclose greenhouse gas emissions from upstream and downstream activities in the issuer’s value chain arising from a farm.

The bills also clarify important definitions and outline upstream and downstream activities.

They also remove the SEC’s exemptive authority in relation to this Agricultural Marketing Act of 1946.

All of these provisions are necessary to address a bad SEC rule for farmers and ranchers.

The preceding commentary is brought to you by Texas Farm Bureau, the “Voice of Texas Agriculture.” Called “Your Texas Agriculture Minute,” TFB will issue thought-provoking editorials each week—via print and audio—to spark understanding of agriculture in the Lone Star State and its impact on each and every Texan.

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