Washington, DC—U.S. Rep. John Rose (TN-6) submitted a bipartisan amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) of 2023. The NDAA is the funding bill Congress passes each fiscal year to authorize funding for all branches of the military and the Department of Defense. The amendment is co-sponsored by Democrat Rep. Elissa Slotkin (MI-8).
The amendment would prohibit the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) from enforcing any provision of any rule resulting from its rulemaking on "Enhanced and Standardization of Climate-Related Disclosures for Investors" that would directly or indirectly require farmers to submit climate-related information to public companies for the SEC. Any such rule would cost public companies hundreds of thousands of dollars more per year in compliance, force already-strained farmers to submit almost impossible-to-calculate data as a precondition of business, and drastically raise the price of food.
The Department of Defense spends $8 billion on food for military personnel, making the American military perhaps the single largest intermediated market for food in the United States according to Cambridge University. Because this ruling would cause the prices of food to increase substantially, it would have a devastating impact on our military's overall food budget, especially as two of the largest suppliers of food to the military—Sysco and U.S. Foods—are public companies that have made climate-related pledges and are subject to the SEC's rulemaking.
U.S. Rep. John Rose released the following statement:
"The military's budget is already struggling with the compounding effects of record-breaking inflation, and the SEC's proposed rule will only make matters worse. This bipartisan amendment is designed to stop the SEC in its tracks and ensure food costs do not impact our military readiness. I am hopeful Members of Congress will recognize the threat this rule poses to our military."
Watch Rep. Rose's testimony in the House Rules Committee in support of the amendment here.
U.S. Representative John Rose is currently serving his second term representing Tennessee's Sixth Congressional District and resides in Cookeville with his wife, Chelsea, and their two sons, Guy and Sam. The Sixth District includes Cannon, Clay, Coffee, Cumberland, DeKalb, Fentress, Jackson, Macon, Overton, Pickett, Putnam, Robertson, Smith, Sumner, Trousdale, White, and Wilson counties as well as portions of Cheatham and Van Buren counties. Representative Rose is an eighth-generation farmer, small business owner, and attorney, and currently serves on the House Financial Services Committee.
Original source can be found here.
