TheCorporateCounsel.net

Back in 2011, the SEC found itself on the losing end of litigation over its “proxy access” rulemaking, after the US Chamber of Commerce challenged the Commission’s economic analysis. In its July lawsuit against the SEC that takes issue with the rollback of 2020 proxy advisor rules, the Chamber is once again leveraging this argument.

Critiques of the SEC’s cost-benefit figures aren’t new, but they have become particularly acute in light of the current rulemaking agenda. This WSJ article says that it is a major theme in recent comments to the SEC’s proposal to enhance ESG disclosure by investment companies.

Compliance costs are also top-of-mind for companies facing down the SEC’s climate disclosure proposal. Among other impacts, this 27-page Gibson Dunn memo dives into what public company oil & gas companies are telling the SEC about their expected regulatory burden if and when that proposal is adopted. Here’s an excerpt:

The Commission estimates that annual direct costs to comply with the proposed rules (including both internal and external resources) would range from $490,000 (smaller reporting companies) to $640,000 (non-smaller reporting companies) in the first year and $420,000 to $530,000 in subsequent years.

52% of public company letters and 43% of industry association letters raised concerns about the actual (and economic) cost of the Proposed Rules. Many believe the SEC underestimated the implementation costs, and a handful of companies provided quantitative estimates as to actual cost.

Sample Comments:

• “We are . . . concerned about the cost, complexity and practicability of complying with parts of the Proposal (in particular, the proposed amendments to Regulation S-X) that will be borne by registrants of all sizes, and which we believe, will significantly exceed the estimates set forth in the Proposal. Our company expects implementation costs in the $100-500 million range, and annual costs for on-going compliance in the $10-25 million range — costs that will ultimately be borne by investors and the public markets.”

• “This additional reporting [on GHG emissions] will come at a high costs: EPA estimated if it lowered its own de minimis reporting thresholds from 25,000 to 1,000 metric tons of CO2e per year it would cost an additional $266 million (in 2006 dollars). . . . EPA updated the reporting requirements for petroleum and natural gas systems in 2010. In doing so, EPA estimated that the incremental cost to reduce the bright line threshold from 25,000 to 1,000 would cost an additional $54.43 million (2006 dollars). . . . Based on EPA’s figures, the Proposed Rule could mean an additional cost to [the company] of $7,000,000 or more in 2006 dollars just to track and report Scope 1 emissions from additional facilities. These figures also suggest that the Commission has not fully accounted for the cost of this rule.”

• “[The company] estimates the cost of voluntarily reporting Scope 3 GHG emissions to be more than $1 million. . . . This does not include accounting personnel to incorporate Scope 3 emissions reporting into our Form 10-K or any commercial efforts needed to amend contracts or attempt to gather and verify Scope 3 emissions data across our value change to the extent it can be identified. Furthermore, [the company] estimates implementing the amendments to Regulation S-X would also be in the millions of dollars.”

• “[A small cap public company] estimate[s] that the total annual cost of satisfying the disclosure requirements set forth in the Proposal would be approximately $500,000 to $800,000, which would be significant for a company of our size.”

• “We believe the Commission’s cost estimates are significantly understated for large accelerated filers. . . . Currently, [the company’s] climate-related disclosures activities in line with TCFD recommendations require time and several million dollars in costs for data and information collection, IT system solutions, services provided and other related tools, techniques, and expertise. This does not include the significant additional time and cost of assurance of our performance data and disclosures.”

• “[W]e believe the SEC has significantly underestimated the costs of compliance, which we believe would be many multiples of the projected $640,000 per year initially and would likely increase over time.”

• “The cost of registrants trying to report in alignment with just certain aspects of TCFD for their first time on a voluntarily basis can be around $500,000. This does not account for the level of rigor, financial line items, attestation, and liability costs associated with complying with this Proposed Rule. The actual cost for complete alignment to TCFD could be up to $1,000,000 per registrant over several years. This does not include the annual cost associated with preparing for and conducting attestation.”

• “[B]y only considering the costs of compliance to the public companies that are required to file, SEC misses completely the costs to companies that supply SEC filers, the largest being the induced requirement to gather and report their GHG emissions to the filing company as a condition of their supply relationship. . . . [B]ecause filing companies will have to undertake the herculean task of estimating their Scope 3 emissions, they will have no other choice but to require their suppliers to provide their GHGs, even if those suppliers have no regulatory requirement otherwise to report to SEC or EPA.”

While these comments don’t seem to be moving SEC Chair Gary Gensler to give up on these proposals, they could influence parts of the final rules. The risk of not heeding these concerns could be that industry groups pounce on the economic analyses in court – like the Chamber is already doing – and the rules get vacated post-adoption.

– Liz Dunshee