More Government Overreach

This time it’s in the Federal government’s Securities and Exchange Commission move to force businesses to disclose their carbon emissions and other climate data. The demand is centered on the claim that inquiring investors want to know this stuff, so Government should force the disclosure.

Indeed, some investors do want to know this stuff, and some businesses think their profit intake will benefit from releasing such information. Other businesses say the proposed diktat mandate would inflict costly, complicated, and useless drags on their bottom lines.

The push, though, along with the push’s supporters and decriers, wholly ignore the key segment in our economy: us ordinary Americans consumers, and investors who are in large part us ordinary Americans.

If we and the investors, both big and small, institutional and retail, among us want this information, we’ll demand it of the companies we want it from, and we’ll do it—and get it—through the market force which we are in our aggregate.

The move by the SEC, though, is typical of beltway politicians of all parties and independents: if it’s a good idea for some or even for many, Government must require it for everyone. This is government overreach.

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