SEC Climate Disclosure Rules Shaped By Global Warming Skeptics; Defunct Conservative Activist Mutual Fund Makes Lasting Impact on Climate Debate

WASHINGTON, Feb. 1 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Though it no longer exists, the impact of the Free Enterprise Action Fund on the global warming debate was concretized last week when the Securities and Exchange Commission decided to require that publicly-owned companies disclose the risks of global warming laws and regulation.

"The Free Enterprise Action Fund turned the tables on the green activists and the U.S. Climate Action Partnership (USCAP) companies that were seeking to use the SEC to advance the global warming agenda," said Steve Milloy, who along with Tom Borelli, co-managed the Free Enterprise Action Fund.

"Rather than forcing publicly-owned companies into helping make climate change regulation inevitable as the greens tried to do, our efforts have resulted in the SEC requiring companies to expose the business-killing nature of junk science-fueled climate regulation," Milloy added.

One month after green groups petitioned the SEC to require publicly-owned companies to disclose the physical risks of climate change -- in hopes pressuring companies to come to terms with green groups on climate regulation -- the Free Enterprise Action Fund petitioned the SEC to require companies to disclose the financial risks to themselves of global warming regulation.  The Fund's petition placed pressure on the greens to modify their demands to include a call for disclosure of the financial risks of regulation.

Last week, the SEC announced that it would issue guidance to publicly-owned corporations requiring disclosure of climate-related risks.

"It's clear from the SEC's press release that the Fund's call for financial disclosure of the risks of regulation outweighed in the Commission's mind the call for disclosure of the physical risks of climate change," said Milloy.

"This is significant going forward since companies lobbying for global warming regulation, like the USCAP companies, will be loathe to disclose the risks of such regulation to their bottom lines," said Milloy.

Milloy says we should watch for support for climate regulation from publicly-owned companies to be on the wane.  "USCAP companies will no longer be able to say that they must have climate regulation to avoid hypothetical physical risks without also disclosing that climate regulation imposes on them much greater and more certain financial risks."

"Add in Climategate, glaciergate and the general unraveling of global warming alarmism, and publicly-owned companies oughtn't want to touch climate regulation with a ten-foot pole," Milloy concluded.

The Free Enterprise Action Fund was a publicly traded mutual fund from March 2005 until July 2009, at which time it was merged with the Congressional Effect Fund.

The Free Enterprise Action Fund October 2007 petition to the SEC may be viewed at: http://www.sec.gov/rules/petitions/2007/petn4-549.pdf.

SOURCE Free Enterprise Action Fund