From Government Accountability & Oversight
FOIA Litigation reveals breadth and depth of climate activists’ engagement with Biden Administration
Coordination beyond the SEC, to the White House, EPA, others
Energy Policy advocates received 501 pages from the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) in a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit about filings related to the involvement of a fraudster. “climate” profiteer, Persefoni, and its partners Ceres and a consultant named ERM. It is clear that these parties worked closely with the SEC in the development of the later proposed rule of “climate risk disclosure” (CRD).
That rule claimed a relatively low, outlier cost estimate, a fraction of what the other parties estimated this would do to the broader economy and participants. not Persefoni), but lacks a citation or method to explain where it came from.
Since then, many congressional oversight efforts have focused on locating this mysterious cost estimate for the SEC’s extraordinary and legally risky CRD proposal.
To begin with, the GAO mentioned this troubling public-private partnership, This.
For the obvious list of issues (think: imperative speech, materiality, Key Question Doctrine), it seems a reasonable bet to add old-fashioned arbitrariness and capriciousness to the holes. obvious flaw of CRD.
Here are a few examples from the early stages of production and early game stages, bringing out the flavor of the dessert:
Essentially, the emails and other information in the public domain show that Curtis Ravenel served both Michael Bloomberg (see, “Mike”) and mentored ESG stars and former Bank of England exec Mark Carney in the lobbied the Biden Administration to adopt their “climate” of projects as TCFD and GFANZ respectively — as required by law. This portfolio includes, as Treasury products show, lobbying on their Gmail.
The latter is one practice also used by Bloomberg assistant and former SEC Chair Mary Schapiro, who would send emails, such as Janet Yellen’s GMail, Chief of Staff Didem Nisanci, then come along to lobby the SEC on issues climate (?!)). It was quite a activity.
Since then, Persefoni has invited Kristina Wyatt of the SEC, who was featured in these emails, Emily Pierce, and former Commissioner and Acting Chairman Allison Herren Lee, whose schedule was also confirmed by Energy Policy Advocates. was the main driver of this breach, to the Commission. They all return to this relatively new but significant entity.
One can understand why the House Financial Services Committee, the House Oversight & Reform Committee, and the Senate Banking Committee that Republicans pressed the SEC on the matter. Hopefully this helps because once again, containment agencies have forced private parties to go to court to get some of records on how these organizations are being used, with whom.
There is much more there. As the SEC stated about this production in a General Condition Report filed with the United States District Court for the District of Columbia yesterday:
9,600 pages, most of which are attachments. Yesterday’s production included all of the “parent” emails and began releasing some of the many attachments.
Those numbers make it clear that we’ve solved the missing source mystery behind the SEC’s cost estimate for the climate risk disclosure rule. (Readers will also discover that the Persefoni Team has spent quite a bit of time lowering the costs of CRD and, reminiscent of many things in the climate industry, how those costs, why, will they come down. when you force us to have a bigger market..)
More to come, and hopefully congressional watchdogs will have more information. For now, anyone involved in this move should read the SEC’s original product, This.
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