The Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals granted intervenor blue states’ motion to hold in abeyance the cases challenging the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission’s (SEC’s) final climate disclosure rule. The SEC notified the court in March that it wished to withdraw from defense of the rule, and the blue states argued in their motion that this “apparent change in position” on the rule provided good cause for an abeyance in order to “maintain the status quo and preserve judicial resources” while the SEC determined whether it would amend or rescind the rule. The petitioners—which included red states and energy companies and trade groups—had opposed the abeyance motion, arguing that the court should either hold oral argument or submit the case without argument and issue a decision holding the rule unlawful on the merits and vacating it. The petitioners described the rule as “hang[ing] like the Sword of Damocles over public companies around the country.” In the order granting the abeyance motion, the Eighth Circuit directed the SEC to file a status report within 90 days advising whether the SEC intends to review or reconsider the rule. The court specified that if the SEC determines “to take no action, then the status report should address whether the Commission will adhere to the rules if the petitions for review are denied and, if not, why the Commission will not review or  reconsider the rules at this time.”

Challenge to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission's final rule on climate-related disclosures. 

Iowa v. Securities & Exchange Commission

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Eighth Circuit Granted Request to Hold Challenges to SEC Climate Disclosure Rule in Abeyance

Filed

United States of America

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An aim to achieve a quantifiable outcome within a given time-frame, set by an institution such as a national government.

Policy instruments are techniques or tools used by governing authorities to promote certain policies in order to achieve predetermined goals. Put simply, instruments are how a government tries to achieve its goals, with this taxonomy being focused on national policy instruments.

Risk is the potential for adverse consequences resulting from the dynamic interplay between (climate-related) hazards, exposure, and vulnerability of affected human or ecological systems.

Groups  of people who are adversely affected by climate change or the response to it

A set of principles, processes, and practices that build economic and political power to shift from an extractive economy to a regenerative economy.

Justice is the ethical and political framework that addresses fairness, including issues of responsibility, rights, and structural inequity.

Renewable energy means all forms of energy produced from renewable sources in a sustainable manner.

Fossil fuel is a generic term for non-renewable energy sources such as coal, fossil gas, and oil (including crude oil, and petroleum products), that can be used for electricity and heat generation. Fossil fuels are hydrocarbons formed from pressurised and heated organic material buried over millions of years.

Molecules in the atmosphere that play a key role in the greenhouse effect by trapping heat radiating from Earth’s surface.

Area of the economy in which actors engage in identical or related activities.

In human systems, the process of adjustment to actual or expected climate change and its effects, in order to moderate harm, increase resilience or exploit beneficial opportunities. In natural systems, the process of adjustment to actual climate change and its effects; human intervention may facilitate adjustment to expected climate change and its effects.

The management and allocation of funds, assets and investments to meet various objectives

People who are less able to respond to the effects of climate change due to having limited financial or physical assets

Oil is a combustible liquid fossil fuel composed mainly of hydrocarbons, occurring as crude oil and refined into petroleum products such as petrol, diesel and kerosene.

Fossil gas, commonly known as natural gas, is a fossil fuel consisting chiefly of methane with smaller amounts of other hydrocarbons and trace gases, found in underground deposits.

People who have left their homes, whether through force, voluntarily, or a mixture of both

This sector involves the wholesale and retail selling of goods.

Eighth Circuit Granted Request to Hold Challenges to SEC Climate Disclosure Rule in Abeyance

Impacted group

Fossil fuel

Economic sector