SEC Chair Makes A Fool of Himself on CNBC Defending Pushing ESG Disclosures on Businesses

March 7th, 2024 3:10 PM

Gary Gensler, the eco-obsessed Securities and Exchange Commission chair, went on CNBC to make a pathetic attempt to defend a recent, outrageous decision forcing American businesses to make climate change-related disclosures.

While on CNBC’s Power Lunch on March 6, Gensler defended this contentious decision, citing the supposed need to ensure investors had access to information. This decision creates a regulatory burden for American businesses while arming radical climate activists with the information they need to pressure businesses. Gessler dismissed the idea that his order placed an undue burden on American companies. He even went as far as to ridiculously refer to himself and his colleagues as “agnostic” towards what he referred to as “climate risk” for investors. A number of users on X (formerly Twitter), including House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-LA), let the SEC have it in response. 

In a post on X, Scalise wrote, “Biden's SEC just made a radical rule change to allow climate activists to hijack America's capital markets. This is just the latest Biden Administration move that'll hurt retirement savers, job creators, and America's energy security. The House will take action to block it.”

House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer (R-KY) also condemned the SEC move as a partisan imposition disconnected from the agency’s mandate. “The SEC’s job is not climate science or helping asset managers market their products, but to ensure orderly markets,” Comer wrote in a press statement. “It’s time to get back to work.”

Consumers First Executive Director Will Hild went after both the SEC decision and Gensler’s propaganda effort on CNBC. On X, Hild ripped into the burdens the SEC had heaped on American businesses. Hild went on to highlight the contrast between the tyrannical decision of the SEC on climate with the SEC Chair’s absurd claim to be “agnostic” on climate risk. 

Fox News Contributor Steve Milloy referred to the decision as “illegal” in a post on X. At the same time, ten states are appealing this decision to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit.

Late in the interview, Gessler pulled out all the stops and told the hosts that this decision was needed to stop “greenwashing” or as he defined it, “the companies that are bragging about [environmental goals] that might not be valid.”

The SEC chair mentioned an even more extreme possible rule to require the disclosure of “scope three” emissions, or emissions from “suppliers” and “consumers” of public companies. Not shocking anyone, Gensler conceded the monumental pushback erupting from Middle America. “We got a lot of comments about it from the agricultural community, from small and medium-sized enterprises. From many nonpublic companies and said look, even for a public company to make estimates, they may have to start asking questions of the private companies. You know, a farmer or a rancher in Montana.”

In other words, the farmers, ranchers and non-public companies don’t want the companies they do business with to pressure them to change their way of life in pursuit of anti-energy climate cult nonsense. Who knew!

Gensler left open the possibility that the SEC would eventually crush the farmers and ranchers of America as well. Gensler said, “We decided, though, investors are looking at the information, at this time we would not include that in any formal role.”

Conservatives are under attack! Contact ABC News (818) 460-7477, CBS News (212) 975-3247 and NBC News (212) 664-6192 and demand they report on the dangers of ESG.