On February 11, 2025, Acting US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Chairman and Commissioner Mark Uyeda announced that he has directed the SEC staff to notify the US Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit of the changed circumstances surrounding the SEC’s position on the climate disclosure rules. He has also requested additional time for the SEC to deliberate and determine its next steps.

The announcement concerns consolidated litigation pending before the Eighth Circuit that challenges the SEC’s climate disclosure rules.

Commissioner Uyeda stated that the SEC would promptly notify the court of its determinations about its positions in the litigation without providing a specific timetable.

Since their adoption in March 2024, the climate disclosure rules – which require all domestic and foreign publicly traded companies to disclose climate-related risks and mandate certain filers to report material greenhouse gas emissions – faced almost immediate legal challenges, as discussed in a previous alert.

The Commissioner’s statement cited several factors regarding the SEC’s request for a pause in the litigation, including:

  • His and Commissioner Hester Peirce’s original and ongoing opposition to the climate disclosure rules
  • The many submissions against the rules during the proposal stage
  • The SEC’s briefs that had been submitted in the cases defending the rules do not reflect the Commissioner’s views 
  • The SEC’s purported lack of statutory authority to adopt the rules, and
  • The change in the composition of the Board of Commissioners and the recent memorandum regarding a regulatory freeze under the Trump Administration.

In January 2025, two of the Democratic appointees to the SEC’s Board of Commissioners under the Biden Administration – former SEC Chairman Gary Gensler and former Commissioner Jaime Lizárraga – stepped down, creating a 2–1 majority of Republican-appointed Commissioners who had opposed the adoption of the climate disclosure rules.

Commissioner Caroline Crenshaw, the sole Democrat on the SEC’s Board, expressed her disagreement with Commissioner Uyeda’s statement in her own statement of support for the climate disclosure rules.   

While it remains to be seen how the SEC under the Trump Administration will ultimately address the climate disclosure rules, see our alert for potential outcomes of the future of these rules.