The American Energy Alliance urges all members to oppose H.R. 1187 The Corporate Governance Improvement and Investor Protection Act. Despite its title, this legislation is not about improving corporate governance or protecting investors, its purpose is to inject partisan political priorities into the regulation of financial disclosures.
The purpose of SEC mandated financial disclosures is to share meaningful information with investors that can affect the value of their investment or the performance of the company they have invested in. By adding requirements for disclosure regarding political giving, vague Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) concepts, or arbitrary political climate targets, this legislation departs from from that basic standard. Any company that wishes to share this kind of political information is of course entitled to, but mandating SEC regulation as this legislation does is intended to threaten and harass any company which may depart from the partisan political priorities spelled out in this legislation.
To the extent that any of the disclosure categories in this legislation pose a material financial risk to a public company, the company is already required to disclose that risk under current law and regulation. Thus the only purpose of this legislation is to add on a category of political disclosures to harass opponents or chill speech.
The AEA urges all members to support free markets and free democratic participation by voting NO on H.R. 1187. AEA will include this vote in its American Energy Scorecard.