Jul. 27, 2026
Dear Secretary Vanessa Countryman, I am a resident of northern Virginia and a climate activist. I retired from government service after thirty five years, in 2022, so that I could devote myself full-time to fighting off the climate crisis engulfing the planet. I have two children and I want the planet to continue to be inhabitable for them but given the trajectory of climate change, and in particular the unwillingness of this administration to face the facts, I am scared to death that the planet will be uninhabitable no more than a few decades into the future. For that reason, I am writing this letter to you in order to express my horror at the notion that the fossil fuel industry, broadly speaking to include all corporations whose activities impact the environment, will no longer have to report the climate impact of their activities under Regulation S-K. Why would you possibly do this? How do you think it helps the American public? We have corporations making record profits at the expense of the environment and the health of the American public, particularly in areas where persons of color live where they have no political representation to express their interests in these activities. It is an unsupportable, greed-driven, fact-free proposal to even think about rescinding standardized climate-related disclosure requirements for public companies. Such disclosures provide vital information that is necessary for investors, regulators, and the public to make informed decisions in a world increasingly threatened by climate change impacts, where the urgency of the transition to clean energy is apparent in our daily lives. As you know, the SEC has statutory authority to require companies to disclose information that is material to investors. Courts have affirmed that investors, not companies, determine what information is useful. Previous public comments on this rule show that investors overwhelmingly support collection and disclosure of information on climate-related financial risk. Furthermore, companies are already required to disclose this information in dozens of jurisdictions around the world, negating the SEC’s argument that compliance would be excessively costly. Studies indicate that, left unchecked, climate change is likely to cause trillions of dollars of economic damages in the United States and globally. Financial disclosures provide data used in research that informs investors, policymakers, and financial institutions and can help them navigate this uncertain landscape. Depriving investors of material climate-related information will only serve to undermine efforts to assess and mitigate climate risk, at the expense of economic stability. I urge you to keep in place robust climate disclosure requirements and withdraw the proposed rule to roll back disclosure requirements. Sincerely, Patrice Kopistansky