"Democratic SEC Commissioners Allison Lee and Caroline Crenshaw are raising more questions about whether the agency’s climate disclosure proposal would do enough to elicit reliable greenhouse gas emissions data from companies.

The proposal released in March would require companies to report on their carbon footprints and obtain outside reviews of some of the information. The Securities and Exchange Commission would be flexible with the assessments in the beginning and add more checks over time.

The two commissioners told Bloomberg Law in recent interviews they’re interested in requiring companies to obtain independent reviews for all parts of their carbon footprints—going beyond the current SEC draft that would let companies skip third-party assessments of disclosures about their Scope 3 greenhouse emissions.

“Scope 3 is the bulk of many, many companies’ emissions,” Lee said. “And so, it’s important.”

Andrew Ramonas reports for Bloomberg Environment June 13, 2022. [2]