Recently, Governor Newsom proposed that California delay the implementation of its recently-enacted climate disclosure laws for two years. The California legislature has effectively rejected this proposal by passing S.B. 219, a bill that would, among other things, enable the state agency in charge of enacting the disclosure regulation to have an additional six months to adopt the regulations, but not extend the deadline for companies to comply. This bill has been sent to Governor Newsom for approval, but he has not acted upon it (as yet). In effect, the California legislature is re-affirming its commitment to be a national leader in climate disclosure regulation, despite Governor Newsom's efforts to slow the process down.
It should be noted that the California climate disclosure laws at issue are also being challenged in the courts (by a lawsuit brought by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce), and it is not yet clear whether these laws will survive the process of legal review. So all of the maneuvering concerning when the laws--and the disclosure requirements that will be imposed upon companies--will come into effect could be academic if a court decides to void the law entirely.
This bill would delay the requirement that the state board adopt regulations until July 1, 2025, and would require that the regulations adopted by the state board require, among other things, a reporting entity to make the annual disclosure to either the emissions reporting organization or the state board, and that the reporting entity publicly disclose its scope 3 emissions on a schedule specified by the state board, rather than no later than 180 days after its scope 1 emissions and scope 2 emissions are publicly disclosed. The bill would authorize reports to be consolidated at the parent company level and would delete the requirement that the annual fee be paid upon filing the disclosure. The bill would authorize, rather than require . . . [the] develop[ment] [of] a reporting program to receive and make certain required disclosures publicly available.
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