Over two dozen Republican attorneys general are challenging a proposed rule from the New York Stock Exchange that they say would illegally implement a radical environmentalist agenda and harm national security.
The rule from the NYSE would create a listing entity called a Natural Asset Company (NAC), which would be empowered to control private and public lands by capturing “the intrinsic and productive value of nature” and block things like logging, herding, and drilling from happening on the land. The Securities and Exchange Commission is considering the proposal to approve NACs and is taking public comment until January 18.
“If it approves the NYSE’s proposal, the Commission will have effectively enabled the NYSE, the most well-known and influential stock exchange on earth, to authorize the existence of entities that could ultimately be used to subordinate the interests of millions of Americans to the aims of environmental activists as well as to United Nations policies and mandates,” a Tuesday letter from 25 Republican attorneys general led by Utah AG Sean Reyes and Kansas AG Kris Kobach said.
The letter said that the proposal would violate federal securities laws, the Administrative Procedure Act, and the Constitution. The Republicans added that the rule is intended to fund a rule proposal from the Bureau of Land Management that is seeking to grant “conservation leases” on public lands.
The letter said that it is not in “the public interest to facilitate a massive corporate takeover of public lands by private actors who owe no duty to the public and who are guided by their own financial and political interests. Yet that is precisely what the proposed rule does.”
There would also be national security concerns if the SEC allows the NYSE to adopt its proposed rule.
“Even more alarming, the proposed rule will enable foreign actors to obtain perpetual control over public lands, either directly through organizing and registering as NACs or through obtaining controlling interests in NACs. This raises serious national security concerns, particularly given the importance of energy production and natural resource availability to America’s geopolitical position,” the letter said.
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Reyes said that the push for NACs is a “brutish vehicle to accomplish an activist political agenda.”
“They deprive public use of land in multiple ways that will further jeopardize U.S. energy independence and grid stability while illegally opening management, use and ownership of these lands to private parties, including hostile countries or entities,” he said in a statement.
The letter was signed by the AGs of Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Florida, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, New Hampshire, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, Utah, Texas, Virginia, West Virginia and Wyoming.