The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission voted Thursday to end the legal defense of its controversial climate change disclosure rule, which critics have assailed as an environmental regulation beyond the statutory authority of the financial regulator.
SEC Solicitor Tracey Hardin told the the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit in a Thursday letter that the commission was withdrawing its defense of the rule because agency attorneys were “no longer authorized to advance the arguments presented in the Commission’s response brief.”