Barrasso cites Madoff scandal in bid to block SEC on climate

Disgraced money manager Bernie Madoff will help stop the Securities and Exchange Commission from working on climate change – if Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) gets his way.

Barrasso introduced a bill Wednesday to block the SEC’s January decision that forces corporate disclosure of climate-related risks and opportunities in filings with regulators.

The conservative senator believes the SEC is straying from its mission. Barrasso says Exhibit A is the SEC’s failure to catch Madoff’s Ponzi scheme that cost investors billions of dollars.

“In the aftermath of this historic failure, it’s clear that the SEC should focus on its core mission of protecting American investors and maintaining fair markets. Instead, the SEC now wants to devote time and resources to climate change. This is absurd,” Barrasso said in a prepared statement.

Barrasso, a climate skeptic, is calling the bill the Maintaining Agency Direction on Financial Fraud Act, or MADOFF Act in its acronym form.

But advocates of environmentally-friendly investing cheered the SEC action, which came after a 3-2 SEC vote along party lines.

Mindy Lubber, director of the Investor Network on Climate Risk, last month called the SEC vote a “clarion call about the vast risks and opportunities climate change poses for U.S. companies and the urgency for integrating them into investment decision making.”