Good morning to West Coast subscribers, good afternoon to everyone in the East. A new SEC rule would hurt firms and investors, George Will weighs in on race-based admissions, and several new lawsuits have been filed. Here’s what’s on The Docket.
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SEC wants all public companies to disclose how they’re prioritizing climate change 

The Securities and Exchange Commission just released an 886-page rule that The Wall Street Journal calls “a regulatory magnum opus.” The rule forces publicly traded companies to report on their climate change risk management strategies or admit they’re not making climate change a priority concern. The rule drastically exceeds the agency’s authority—so two trade associations, represented free of charge by PLF, are suing the SEC.

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Bureaucrats at EPA and Army Corps ignore the Supreme Court—and now face new lawsuits 

Last year the Supreme Court ruled for PLF clients Mike and Chantell Sackett in a decision that drastically limited the EPA and Army Corps’ enforcement of the Clean Water Act on private property. 

But federal bureaucrats aren’t abiding by the Court’s decision. PLF is now representing three landowners in new lawsuits: Dan Ward, who wants to build a small pond at his rural Iowa homestead; Val Valentine, who wants to use his 1,700 acres of North Carolina timberland for forestry and recreation; and Robert White, a North Carolina landowner who tried to set up flood control measures for agriculture.  

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In San Diego, first-time homebuyers can get $40,000—as long as they’re not white 

A pilot program in San Diego is helping middle income, first-time homebuyers afford downpayments by providing up to $40,000. The catch? It’s only open to nonwhite buyers. PLF represents Californians for Equal Rights Foundation, who has filed a lawsuit to restore equal treatment for all first-time homebuyers, regardless of race.

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No qualified immunity for child protection officers who took kids without warrant, court rules

Good news for Josh Sabey and Sarah Perkins, the Massachusetts couple whose young children were temporarily taken away by child protection officers over an accidental fracture. The officers who took the Sabey children from their home in the middle of the night, without a warrant, are not entitled to qualified immunity, a district court ruled this week. 

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George Will: On race-based school admissions, the Supreme Court flinched 

“The Supreme Court sometimes does something momentous by declining to do something,” George Will wrote in his Washington Post column this week. He was referring to the Court’s refusal to hear the Coalition for TJ’s case about race-based admissions at Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology. 

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