The SEC’s climate disclosure rules (adopted in 2024 but mired in legal challenges and uncertainty ever since) now appear headed for formal repeal. According to a recent filing with the U.S. Office of Management and Budget and confirmed by an SEC spokesperson, the agency is preparing to rescind the climate reporting rules introduced during the Biden administration under then-SEC Chair Gary Gensler.
The rules would have required companies to disclose, among other things, climate-related risks to their businesses, plans to mitigate those risks, the financial impacts of any identified climate-related risks, and, in certain cases, greenhouse gas emissions originating from their operations.
The rules faced legal challenges almost immediately after they were released, and were paused in 2024 pending judicial review. While the SEC initially mounted a legal defense of the rules, the change in administration following the 2024 presidential election shifted the agency’s posture. After Gensler resigned, the SEC announced it would drop its defense of the rules.
Under current Chair Paul Atkins, the SEC went a step further, telling the court it did not intend to review or reconsider the rules at all, instead requesting that the court rule on the petitions filed against the rules. In September 2025, the U.S. Court of Appeals declined to do so, directing the SEC itself to determine whether the rules would be “rescinded, repealed, modified, or defended in litigation.”
Assuming the SEC moves forward with its plans, rescinding the climate reporting rules will be a lengthy process requiring the agency to go through a full notice-and-comment rulemaking: proposing the repeal with supporting rationale, soliciting public input, and substantively addressing the feedback it receives before issuing a final rule. And even then, that final rule could be challenged in court.
The move underscores the current administration's intent to pull back from prescriptive ESG disclosure requirements and refocus the SEC on what it views as traditional, materiality-based securities regulation. Whether this repeal effort succeeds (and how quickly) will be closely watched by public companies, investors, and sustainability advocates alike.