The White House on Friday released a strategic report to account for and mitigate climate change-related financial and economic risks facing the nation.
The report — "A Roadmap to Build a Climate-Resilient Economy" — was crafted after President Joe Biden signed an executive order in May directing federal agencies to develop a governmentwide strategy within 120 days to measure, mitigate and disclose financial risks related to climate change.
Featured in the report is a Department of Labor rule proposed Wednesday that explicitly permits plan fiduciaries to consider climate change and other environmental, social and governance factors when selecting investments and exercising shareholder rights. A 60-day comment period on the proposal, which if enacted would reverse rules promulgated under the Trump administration, opened Thursday.
Also included in the strategy is the Securities and Exchange Commission's forthcoming rule-making on mandating public companies to disclose climate risks. The SEC received more than 550 unique comments on the issue during a comment period that ended in June.
The White House said the SEC rule is "intended to bring greater clarity to investors about the material risks and opportunities that climate change poses to their investments." The rule is expected to be proposed in the coming months, the White House added.
The Labor Department has also solicited input from the Federal Retirement Thrift Investment Board, Washington, and other stakeholders to better understand how the Thrift Savings Plan has taken climate-related financial risk and other ESG factors into account to date, to inform an understanding of current challenges and opportunities, the White House report said.
The Thrift board administers the $795.7 billion Thrift Savings Plan, the retirement system for 6.4 million federal employees and members of the uniformed services.
Also of note, Mr. Biden's executive order directed Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, in her role as the chairwoman of the Financial Stability Oversight Council, to work with council members to assess climate-related financial risk to the federal government and the stability of the U.S. financial system.
The FSOC report is expected by November, the White House said.
