SEC Mulls Climate Rule Tweaks to Avoid Regulating Private Firms

The SEC is weighing how to ensure public companies’ suppliers aren’t overly burdened by the agency’s pending climate disclosure rules, agency Chair Gary Gensler said Thursday.

Securities and Exchange Commission staff are looking to see how they can ensure “that we don’t indirectly sort of do what we can’t do directly—we don’t regulate non-public companies,” Gensler said during a US Chamber of Commerce event centered around the planned final rules, anticipated by the end of the year.

Rules the SEC proposed last year would require publicly traded companies under its jurisdiction to disclose their carbon footprint. The proposal broke down ...