The SEC Disclosure Divide: The Cost of Compliance
A Regulatory Transparency Project Fourth Branch Film
A Regulatory Transparency Project Fourth Branch Film
In March 2022, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) introduced a climate disclosure rule requiring publicly traded companies to report on how climate change affects their business. This includes their greenhouse gas emissions, potential financial risks from climate change, and how they plan to manage those risks. The rule has sparked intense debate over its necessity, economic impact, and constitutionality.
The Regulatory Transparency Project’s newest short film, The SEC Disclosure Divide: The Cost of Compliance, features insights from legal scholars, policy experts, and industry leaders, such as recently confirmed Energy Secretary, Chris Wright. Is this regulation a critical step toward corporate transparency and climate accountability, or does it place an undue burden on businesses, slowing innovation and increasing compliance costs? As companies navigate evolving environmental regulations, this short film examines whether the SEC’s rule is a solution to climate challenges—or a costly regulatory overreach.
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As always, the Federalist Society takes no position on particular legal or public policy issues; all expressions of opinion are those of the speaker.
Andrew Sabin Professor of Professional Practice and Founder and Faculty Director of the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law, Columbia University Law School
The founder and faculty director of the groundbreaking Sabin Center for Climate Change Law and one of the foremost environmental lawyers in the nation, Michael Gerrard is an advocate, litigator, teacher, and scholar who has pioneered cutting-edge legal tools and strategies for addressing climate change. He writes and teaches courses on environmental law, climate change law, and energy regulation. He was the chair of the faculty of Columbia University’s renowned Earth Institute from 2015 to 2018 and now holds a joint appointment to the faculty of its successor, the Columbia Climate School.
For three decades, before joining the Columbia Law School faculty in 2009, Gerrard practiced law in New York, most recently as the partner in charge of the New York office of Arnold & Porter. As an environmental lawyer, he tried numerous cases and argued many appeals in federal and state courts and administrative tribunals. He also handled the environmental aspects of diverse transactions and development projects and provided regulatory compliance advice to an array of clients in the private and public sectors. Several publications rated him the leading environmental lawyer in New York and one of the leaders in the world.
Director, Climate Change Research Network, Vanderbilt University Law School
Michael Vandenbergh, director of the Energy, Environment, & Land Use program is an award-winning teacher and scholar whose research focuses on working with interdisciplinary teams to explore environmental governance, environmental behavior and climate change. His research has developed the concept of private environmental governance and explored how private governance initiatives can address polarization and other barriers to climate change mitigation. In 2022, Vandenbergh was awarded an Andrew Carnegie Fellowship to support his project “Bypassing Polarization: Engaging Conservatives to Achieve Climate Justice,” an interdisciplinary venture that draws on insights from social psychology, law, and policy to bypass polarization and develop large-scale interventions to engage moderates and conservatives. His interdisciplinary work with Vanderbilt’s Climate Change Research Network focuses on the reduction of carbon emissions from the household sector, and he is one of the top 25 law professors in the US based on peer-reviewed literature citations. His book with physicist Jonathan Gilligan, Beyond Politics: The Private Governance Response to Climate Change (Cambridge University Press, 2017) was favorably reviewed in Science, Nature Climate Change and Legal Planet; won the 2018 Chancellor’s Award for Research; and was named by the Environmental Forum as one of the most important environmental policy books of the last 50 years. His article “Beyond Gridlock,” also co-authored with Gilligan, won the 2015 Morrison Prize for North America’s best sustainability article. His other writings have appeared in PNAS, Nature Climate Change and the Columbia, Cornell, Michigan and NYU Law Reviews. Before joining Vanderbilt’s law faculty, Professor Vandenbergh was a partner at Latham & Watkins in Washington, D.C. He served as chief of staff of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency from 1993 to 1995. He began his career as a law clerk for Judge Edward R. Becker of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit. A recipient of teaching awards at Vanderbilt and at the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania, Vandenbergh teaches courses in environmental law, climate change justice and property. He has been a visiting professor at the Wharton School’s Department of Legal Studies and Business Ethics and at the University of Chicago and Harvard Law Schools. He is a fellow of the American College of Environmental Lawyers and a member of the Board on Environmental Change and Society of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine.
Attorney, Pacific Legal Foundation
Luke A. Wake is an attorney at the Pacific Legal Foundation. Prior to joining PLF, he was a senior staff attorney at the NFIB Small Business Legal Center.
Wake has particular expertise on environmental and land use issues, and has worked on numerous other constitutional issues and matters of importance to small business owners. He is an ardent defender of private property rights, which he believes are essential to the free enterprise system and the foundation of American liberty. As a strong advocate of individual rights and economic liberties, he has built his career defending small business interests.
Wake has focused on a whole host of issues, from employment law matters to regulatory compliance. In addition to serving as a resource for small business owners, Wake is committed to ensuring that the voice of small business is heard in the nation’s courts. As an appellate practitioner, Wake has focused particularly on informing the courts on matters of administrative law and on issues under the Fifth Amendment’s Takings Clause. He is also working to advance small business interests in law review articles, and was recently published in the Berkeley Journal of Law & Ecology. See R.S. Radford & Luke A. Wake, Deciphering and Extrapolating: Searching for Sense in Penn Central, 38 Ecology L.Q. 731, 746-747 (2011).
Before joining the Legal Center’s team, Wake completed a prestigious two-year fellowship as an attorney in the Pacific Legal Foundation’s College of Public Interest Law. Wake is a graduate of Case Western Reserve University School of Law in Cleveland Ohio, and is a member of the California Bar. He completed his undergraduate studies at Elon University in North Carolina in 2006 where he focused on political theory and corporate communications.
Secretary, U.S. Department of Energy
Chris Wright is the 17th Secretary for the U.S. Department of Energy. A self-described energy nerd turned entrepreneur, Chris is a dedicated humanitarian with a passion for bringing the benefits of energy to every community in the world. This passion has inspired a career in energy, working not only in oil and gas but nuclear, solar, and geothermal. As Secretary of Energy, Chris is focused on unleashing American energy dominance, accelerating innovation and advancing all energy sources that are affordable, reliable and secure for the American people.
Chris completed an undergraduate degree in Mechanical Engineering at MIT and graduate work in Electrical Engineering at UC Berkeley and MIT. He founded Pinnacle Technologies and served as CEO from 1992 to 2006. Pinnacle created the hydraulic fracture mapping industry, and its innovations helped launch commercial shale gas production in the late 1990s. Chris was Chairman of Stroud Energy, an early shale gas producer, before selling to Range Resources in 2006. Most recently, Chris served as Chairman and CEO of Liberty Energy, where his team helped to expand the shale revolution to include oil as well as natural gas. Chris has also participated in an effort to apply shale technology to unlock next-generation geothermal and helped to launch small modular reactors.
Chris was nominated by President Trump to serve as the 17th Secretary of Energy on November 16, 2024 and confirmed by the U.S. Senate on February 3rd, 2025. He grew up and in Colorado and currently lives in Washington, D.C. with his wife, Liz. He is a passionate father, grandfather, skier, cyclist, climber, and outdoor enthusiast.