Eighth Circuit Holds SEC Climate Rule Litigation in Abeyance

On April 24, 2025, the Eighth Circuit ordered that the litigation over the validity of the SEC's climate disclosure rule be “held in abeyance.”  This order was in response to a submission by a coalition of blue states that intervened in the case, and are the sole defenders of the SEC's climate disclosure rule now that the Trump Administration's SEC has abandoned its defense. 

In effect, this means that the judicial challenge to the SEC's climate disclosure rule will be stayed until the SEC informs the court about whether it “intends to review or reconsider the rules at issue in this case”--i.e., whether the SEC will engage in the lengthy administrative process necessary to revoke the climate disclosure rule promulgated by the Biden Administration's SEC. 

Perhaps most significantly, the Eighth Circuit has effectively announced that it will not permit the Trump Administration's SEC to let the climate disclosure rule die quietly in the dark--as the court proclaimed, “if the [SEC] has determined to take no action [i.e., not engage in the administrative process of review], then the [SEC] should address whether the [SEC] will adhere to the rules if the petitions for review are denied”--in other words, if the courts uphold the climate disclosure rule, then the SEC must state whether it will enforce the climate disclosure rule or not.  And “if not” then the SEC must explain “why the [SEC] will not review or reconsider the rules at this time”--i.e., why it has chosen to not engage with the administrative process.  The Court is effectively signaling that the SEC should engage in the administrative process to revoke the climate disclosure rule, since it is telegraphing that the Court would not regard favorably any decision by the SEC to simply not enforce the climate disclosure rule should the courts ultimately uphold its legitimacy.