Sen. Tommy Tuberville, a member of the Senate Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry Committee, is cosponsoring a bill that will exempt family farmers from Securities and Exchange Commission requirements forcing farmers to report all operational Scope 3 greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.
Tuberville was joined by Sens. John Boozman of Arkansas and Mike Braun of Indiana.
The Protect Farmers from the SEC Act, as the bill is called, comes in response to a newly proposed rule from the SEC which would force publicly traded companies to include various climate related disclosures in their registrations statements and periodic reports. This also includes farms that are outside of the SEC’s statutory authority.
Jimmy Parnell, Alabama Farmers Federation president, said the legislation is necessary due to what he called “over reach” by the SEC.
“The Alabama Farmers Federation appreciates Sen. Tuberville’s efforts to exempt family farms from this ridiculous attempt to regulate farmers through the Securities and Exchange Commission,” he said. “Farmers should be focused on growing the food and fiber that is vital to our economic and national security, not hiring compliance teams to help them navigate Wall Street regulations.
“This rule would be yet another burden placed on family farmers in an effort to advance the ESG agenda that has proven time and time again to be harmful to our nation’s best interests.”
U.S. Rep. Frank Lucas (R-Okla.) introduced the legislation in the House of Representatives.
“The foundation of our economy is agriculture,” Tuberville (R-Auburn) said. “Yet the radical climate activists in the Biden Administration keep putting more and more burdensome rules on our farmers and producers. This makes their jobs even harder and it drives up prices at the grocery store. This bill will protect our farmers from the Biden Administration’s latest climate rule.
“I will always fight in the United States Senate so our farmers and producers can continue to feed, fuel, and clothe our nation.”
If passed, the Protect Farmers from the SEC Act would exempt farms from SEC requirements to disclose greenhouse gas emissions from upstream and downstream activities in the issuer’s value chain.
