The Obama administration wants to begin asking federal contractors to disclose information about their greenhouse gas emissions.
The White House’s Federal Acquisition Regulation Council proposed new rules on Wednesday requiring government contractors to provide information on how they account for the emissions blamed for causing manmade climate change.
The White House said in a blog post that the rule “would drive greater disclosure of greenhouse gas emissions and climate-related risk data among the government’s supply chain.”
“It’s the responsible thing to do to take steps to understand the sustainability — and challenges — associated with your supply chain; and that’s especially true when you’re the federal government and that supply chain exceeds $400 billion per year,” the post adds.
The rules will “drive greater disclosure” to show “if and where contractors and vendors publicly disclose greenhouse gas emissions, greenhouse gas reduction goals or targets, and climate-related risks — such as physical risks to operations associated with extreme weather events.”
Meanwhile, Exxon Mobil shareholders voted down a resolution Wednesday that called for the company to disclose the effects of climate change on its operations. Shareholders rejected a number of climate-related resolutions at the company’s annual meeting in Dallas.
The White House says its proposal places greater focus on how the federal government manages its supply chain, including the data needed “to do that responsibly.”
The proposal leverages the federal government’s purchasing power to drive this type of “unprecedented disclosure.”
It notes that the Navy and the General Services Administration already have taken similar steps.
