Energy & Sustainability Litigation Updates — December 2023

Federal Regulatory Developments

The SEC has still not issued its final climate-related disclosure rule (originally proposed in March 2022), despite prior indications that it would do so in the fall of 2023. Recently, SEC Commissioner Mark Uyeda — one of the two Republican appointees to the five-member commission — suggested that the proposed climate-disclosure rule be "re-proposed," which would further delay any such rule by a number of months, to allow time for further comment (and potentially delay the issuance of a climate disclosure rule beyond the next election in November 2024). However, such a "re-proposing" appears unlikely, as SEC Chair Gensler has reiterated his support for the SEC's proposed climate disclosure rule in recent remarks, further opining that a failure to act by the SEC would result in a "fragmented space" due to regulatory initiatives by, among others, Europe and California. According to Gensler, the SEC's rule would "bring some consistency