On July 23, 2025, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filed a status report in the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals proceedings challenging the SEC’s 2024 climate change disclosure rules. In response to questions posed by the court in an April 24, 2025 order regarding the SEC’s intentions with respect to the rules, the SEC said it did not intend to review or reconsider the rules “at this time” and requested that the Eighth Circuit end the abeyance and decide the case. The SEC stated that if the court upheld the rules, “any reconsideration of them would be subject to Commission deliberation and vote of its members, and the Commission cannot prejudge that action.” (The SEC also stated that prejudging “would not be appropriate.”) In addition, the SEC stated that because the court’s decision “would inform the scope and need for such action,” a decision by the court would “promote an efficient resolution to the dispute between the parties.” The SEC contended that a decision by the court would not be advisory because “[a]n important, live controversy of national policy with critical economic and policy ramifications” remained and that the court’s decision could “conclusively resolve the dispute about the Commission’s power to adopt the mandatory disclosure obligations on climate risk in the Rules.”

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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SEC Asked Eighth Circuit to Proceed with Decision on Climate Change Disclosure Rules

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

Either money or something of monetary value is transferred between two or more organisations, people or countries.

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.

Activities of government agencies and institutions that provide public services, enforce laws and manage public resources.

SEC Asked Eighth Circuit to Proceed with Decision on Climate Change Disclosure Rules

Fossil fuel

Economic sector

Finance