America did not become the world’s energy superpower by bending the knee to socialist, climate alarmist ideology. It became an economic powerhouse because free markets rewarded innovation, hard work, and results.
This is a lesson radical environmentalists never learned.
As a former banker, licensed financial advisor, and now an oil and gas regulator for the most fossil fuel-rich state in the nation, it’s made my skin crawl watching Environmental, Social, and Governance rating agencies, climate activist shareholders, international climate agreements, and unelected bureaucrats push the idea that financial success should be measured by political climate goals instead of what actually matters.
Profitability and shareholder value.
The climate agenda accomplished little beyond diverting billions of dollars from productive investment into political compliance. In other words, your retirement account is just collateral damage to radical environmentalists who are leveraging ESG investment strategies to defund the oil and gas industry.
Thankfully, the Trump administration is reversing course. The decision by the Securities and Exchange Commission to reverse course on its Biden-era, lunatic climate disclosure rule represents a perfect example of that change. The SEC’s purpose is not to serve as America’s climate regulator, and yet the Biden administration attempted to turn publicly traded companies into climate reporting agencies.
Under this rule, businesses are required to disclose physical climate risks like hurricanes, floods, wildfires, and droughts, along with speculative “transition risks” tied to future regulations, shifting consumer preferences, new technologies, and climate-related litigation. Many would also have been required to explain board oversight of climate issues and to report detailed emissions data.
In short, the rule is exceptionally harmful to our financial sector and costly to Americans, without a measurable benefit. It doesn’t produce a barrel of oil, hire American labor, drive product innovation, or create value for shareholders.
What it really does is appease a political agenda through financial obstructionism. It creates red tape, compliance systems, legal reviews, consultants, auditors, and billions in new costs. It results in higher prices, lower returns, and fewer economic opportunities for American families.
The evidence is clear. The SEC estimated that eliminating just these mandates would save public companies roughly $4.9 billion every year over the next decade, and this is just the tip of the iceberg.
When the Trump administration’s EPA also proposed rescinding the Obama-era Endangerment Finding and the regulatory framework built upon it, the agency estimated the change would save Americans more than $54 billion annually and over $1 trillion in cumulative regulatory costs.
Those staggering numbers offer only a glimpse of how costly climate-driven regulation has become. The truth is, no one can fully measure how much replacing sound economic policy with political ideology has cost America.
For decades, Americans have been warned that climate catastrophe is just around the corner. It never arrives, but the prescription never changes: higher taxes, more mandates, bigger bureaucracy, and relentless attacks on affordable American energy.
On their own, markets know how to evaluate risk. Insurance companies already assess hurricane and wildfire exposure. Banks account for flood risk before making loans. Investors assess changing technologies, consumer demand, lawsuits, and government regulations every day.
That is what free markets do. This is where we can draw a line in the sand. We must reject that mindset once and for all and unapologetically unleash American prosperity.
MAMDANI MADE HIS CASE. NOW VOTERS HAVE TO ANSWER IT
The SEC should finalize its repeal of the climate disclosure rule and return to its statutory mission. Investors, not bureaucrats, should decide what information matters. Markets, not Washington, should determine where money is invested.
That is how America became the world’s economic superpower. It is how we will remain one.
Wayne Christian is a statewide elected official serving as a Commissioner on the Railroad Commission of Texas, the nation’s premier oil and gas regulatory agency, which oversees energy production in America’s leading oil- and natural gas-producing state. First elected in 2016, he is currently serving his second six-year term. Before returning to public service, Christian built a successful career in business, banking, real estate, and financial services. He also served seven terms in the Texas House of Representatives.