On Wednesday, August 27, the State of New York announced it had settled a dispute with Xcel Energy regarding the company’s alleged failure to make adequate climate-change-related risk disclosures in its 2006 10-K filings to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).  Described by State officials as the “First-Ever Binding and Enforceable Agreement Requiring a Company to Detail Financial Liabilities Related to Climate Change,” the Agreement requires Xcel Energy to disclose, as part of its annual Form 10-K SEC filings, the following information:

• Present and probable future climate change regulation and legislation;
• Climate-change related litigation;
• Physical impacts of climate change.
• Current carbon emissions;
• Projected increases in carbon emissions from planned coal-fired power plants;
• Company strategies for reducing, offsetting, limiting, or otherwise managing its global warming pollution emissions and expected global warming emissions reductions from these actions; and
• Corporate governance actions related to climate change, including whether environmental performance is incorporated into officer compensation.

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