Section 13(q) of the Exchange Act, enacted as part of the Dodd-Frank Act, requires the SEC to adopt rules requiring certain disclosure by reporting companies engaged in commercial development of oil, natural gas or minerals. The SEC had adopted Rule 13q-1, the resource extraction rule, in August 2012, but, soon after, associations of oil, natural gas and mining companies filed suit challenging the final rule on various grounds. In July 2013, the US District Court for the District of Columbia vacated the rule and remanded it to the SEC, ordering the agency to reformulate the rule. On September 18, 2014, following several postponements of an anticipated SEC rulemaking timeline, Oxfam America, Inc. sued the SEC to compel it to implement Section 13(q) of the Exchange Act. On September 2, 2015, the Massachusetts District Court held that the SEC's delay in adopting a final resource extraction rule constitutes unlawful withholding of the rule in violation of the Administrative Procedure Act and ordered the SEC to file with the court an expedited schedule for this rulemaking within 30 days. For more information on the SEC's prior attempts to adopt a resource extraction rule and the September 2015 district court holding, see Legal Updates:
In its notice filed with the Massachusetts District Court, the SEC proposed the following timetable:
Vote on a proposed rule before the end of 2015.
Allow members of the public to comment on the proposal for least 45 days after issuing the proposal.
Vote on a final rule within 270 days of filing the notice, or by June 27, 2016.
In offering this proposed schedule, the SEC noted that this is an extremely expedited timeframe to complete rulemaking on such a contentious matter, given the history of the vacated resource extraction rule and the SEC's ongoing demanding workload.