{"id":658870,"date":"2026-08-27T21:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-08-27T21:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/buglecall.org\/?p=658870"},"modified":"2026-08-27T21:00:00","modified_gmt":"2026-08-27T21:00:00","slug":"state-ags-target-big-four-accounting-firms-claim-theyre-pushing-climate-disclosures","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/buglecall.org\/?p=658870","title":{"rendered":"State AGs Target ‘Big Four’ Accounting Firms, Claim They’re Pushing Climate Disclosures"},"content":{"rendered":"

State AGs Target ‘Big Four’ Accounting Firms, Claim They’re Pushing Climate Disclosures<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

Authored by Kevin Stocklin via The Epoch Times<\/a>,<\/em><\/p>\n

A coalition of 16 state attorneys general is investigating the “Big Four” accounting firms, alleging that they may have pushed climate accounting on client companies.<\/strong><\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"
Climate change activists hold signs during a press conference with members of the House of Reps. Sustainable Energy and Environment Coalition on Capitol Hill in Washington on Nov. 13, 2025. Madalina Kilroy\/The Epoch Times<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

<\/p>\n

“The Big Four’s climate commitments force clients to make burdensome climate-related disclosures that drive up the costs of their services and place onerous requirements on farmers and small businesses,” Nebraska Attorney General Mike Hilgers, who co-led the coalition, said in a statement.<\/p>\n

“These costs will ultimately be passed onto consumers, who will be forced to bear the burden of increased prices for food, energy, and other everyday products.”<\/p>\n

These accounting firms – Deloitte, KPMG, Ernst & Young, and PriceWaterhouseCoopers – together provide an estimated 80 percent of all public company audits, according to Becker, an education organization for professionals.<\/p>\n

The AGs’ letter states that the accounting firms “appear to have violated their professional duty of independence<\/strong> by committing to push for climate-related disclosures in financial reporting, contrary to professional standards of materiality, neutrality, and error avoidance.”<\/p>\n

The letter also highlights the accounting firms’ former membership in the U.N.-sponsored Net Zero Financial Service Providers Alliance (NZFSPA), in which members pledge to align their products and services with the Paris Climate Agreement’s net-zero goals.<\/p>\n

In addition, the AGs stated that climate-related disclosures could become a significant financial burden for smaller firms, and that “the highly speculative nature of climate-related disclosures” could expose all firms that produce such reports to “frivolous and costly litigation.”<\/p>\n

Consequently, the accounting firms could be exposed to charges of conflict of interest and be in violation of state laws against “deceptive acts and practices,”<\/strong> the letter warned.<\/p>\n

The NZFSPA, which formerly operated as part of a network of financial alliances under the Glasgow Financial Alliance for Net Zero (GFANZ), included ratings agencies, data and index providers, proxy advisors, auditors and stock exchanges.<\/p>\n

In January, the NZFSPA announced that it was reorganizing, with member companies “now pursuing activities independently.”<\/p>\n

Other former members of GFANZ-sponsored net-zero alliances included JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, Citigroup, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, and Wells Fargo, BlackRock, Vanguard, State Street and some of the world’s largest insurance companies.<\/p>\n

Starting in 2024, however, these alliances began to shut down as members quit<\/a><\/strong> amid charges of collusion and antitrust activity from conservative lawmakers, state treasurers, and attorneys general.<\/p>\n

Since taking office in 2025, the Trump administration has also worked to repeal climate policies put in place under the Biden administration.<\/p>\n

In March 2025, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) announced it would not defend the Biden-era climate disclosure rules, which mandated that publicly traded companies audit and disclose their climate-related risks and greenhouse-gas emissions, and which plaintiffs had challenged as overreach.<\/p>\n

In May of this year, the SEC formally rescinded the mandate altogether.<\/strong><\/p>\n

In addition, in January, President Donald Trump withdrew<\/a> the United States from more than 60 U.N. climate-affiliated organizations, declaring them “contrary to U.S. national interests, security, economic prosperity, or sovereignty.”<\/p>\n

Despite the efforts of the Trump administration, however, companies are still required to report greenhouse gas emissions due to mandates in Europe and California.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Since 2023, the European Union<\/a> has imposed such mandates on companies that do business or list there.<\/p>\n

Accounting firm PriceWaterhouseCoopers estimates that about 50,000 companies worldwide will have to comply with the EU’s Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive.<\/p>\n

Similarly, companies that do business in California and that have annual revenues of $1 billion or more<\/strong> must also report greenhouse gas emissions, according to the California Corporate Greenhouse Gas Reporting Program, passed in 2023.<\/p>\n

The Epoch Times<\/em> contacted the accounting firms Deloitte, KPMG, Ernst & Young, and PriceWaterhouseCoopers for comment but did not receive a reply as of publication time.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Tyler Durden<\/a><\/span>
\nThu, 08\/27\/2026 – 17:00<\/span><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

State AGs Target ‘Big Four’ Accounting Firms, Claim They’re Pushing Climate Disclosures Authored by Kevin Stocklin via The Epoch Times, A coalition of 16 state attorneys general is investigating the “Big Four” accounting firms, alleging that they may have pushed climate accounting on client companies. Climate change activists hold signs during a press conference with… Continue reading State AGs Target ‘Big Four’ Accounting Firms, Claim They’re Pushing Climate Disclosures<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":658871,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":[],"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","footnotes":""},"categories":[17,22,13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-658870","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-border-security","category-immigration","category-immigration-reform","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/buglecall.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/658870","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/buglecall.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/buglecall.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buglecall.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buglecall.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=658870"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/buglecall.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/658870\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buglecall.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/658871"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/buglecall.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=658870"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buglecall.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=658870"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buglecall.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=658870"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}