The National Association of Manufacturers (NAM) Calls for an SEC Investigation Regarding Potential Wrongdoing

The NAM’s Manufacturers’ Accountability Project (MAP) is calling on the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to investigate potential wrongdoing committed by eight California municipalities and New York City in their municipal bond offerings.

These nine municipalities have brought lawsuits seeking damages from manufacturers for the impacts of climate change on their cities. These claims for damages, however, run contrary to the municipalities’ assessments of the impacts of climate change in their municipal bond offerings, raising serious questions about whether bondholders – or the courts – have been misled.

“Over the course of our work advocating for manufacturers in America, we have seen several examples of municipalities asserting specific impacts of climate change. Conversely, bonds offered by these same municipalities state that such predictions are impossible to measure,” MAP Executive Director Lindsey de la Torre wrote in a letter to the SEC’s Public Finance Abuse Unit. “The NAM is increasingly concerned by the municipalities assertions in their legal filings and the approach used to attract investors to its bond offerings.”

Read the full letter sent to the SEC’s Public Finance Abuse Unit here.