Corporate Climate Disclosures to Get Aggressive Scrutiny by SEC

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission is boosting scrutiny of how well companies disclose risks that climate change poses to their businesses, one of its first moves to confront an issue that’s key to the Biden administration’s policy goals.

SEC acting chair Allison Herren Lee will ask the agency’s corporate finance group to focus on climate in their reviews of corporate filings that are pored over by investors, the regulator said in a Wednesday statement. The move could prompt new rules or an update to guidance the regulator issued in 2010 on climate disclosures.

“Now more than ever, investors ...