U.S.: Fifth Circuit Allows Texas to Enforce Energy Boycott Law Pending Outcome of Appeal
On May 29, 2026, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit granted Texas officials’ motion to stay an injunction that had blocked enforcement of Senate Bill 13 (“S.B. 13”), a 2021 law prohibiting certain public entities from investing in funds that refuse to invest in energy companies. The order allows Texas to enforce the law while the state’s appeal proceeds.
S.B. 13 was enacted as part of Texas’s broader response to ESG-related investment policies. In February, the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas enjoined enforcement of the law after finding constitutional defects under the First and Fourteenth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution, including that the law likely penalized protected expression concerning fossil fuels and was impermissibly vague.
In a one-sentence per curium order, the Fifth Circuit granted the state officials’ motion to stay the injunction pending appeal. Judge James Ho concurred, writing that “S.B. 13 is about spending, not speech.” He compared the law to other measures restricting public business with entities that boycott Israel or target the firearms industry, citing the Eighth Circuit’s 2022 decision rejecting a First Amendment challenge to an Arkansas law that forbade state agencies from contracting with companies that refuse to do business with Israel.
The Fifth Circuit will now consider whether the district court properly enjoined enforcement of S.B. 13; in the meantime, the law may be enforced pending appeal.
Links:
Order
U.S.: States Challenge Agreement Canceling Offshore Wind Lease and Redirecting Funds to Fossil Fuel Projects
On June 2, 2026, New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Vermont sued the Trump Administration over its cancelation of an offshore wind lease OCS-A 0538 in the New York Bight. The complaint challenges this cancelation by the Department of the Interior (“DOI”) of a lease held by Attentive Energy LLC (“Attentive”), a TotalEnergies SE (“TotalEnergies”) subsidiary, and the related settlement agreement among DOI, the Department of Justice (“DOJ”), and Attentive. The lease covers more than 84,000 acres off the coasts of New York and New Jersey (the “Attentive Lease”).
The states allege that the lease’s cancellation disrupts significant offshore wind and clean-energy planning in New York and New Jersey. According to the complaint, Attentive acquired the lease in a competitive lease sale in 2022, and the lease area was anticipated to support more than 2.7 gigawatts of offshore wind capacity, enough to power more than 1.3 million homes in New York and New Jersey while supporting grid reliability, jobs, and related port and supply-chain investments.
The challenged settlement effectively unwinds the Attentive Lease in exchange for conventional energy investment commitments. Under the settlement agreement, DOI agreed to cancel the Attentive Lease, and DOJ agreed to seek payment from the Judgment Fund—a permanent federal appropriation used to pay certain judgments and settlements against the United States—to reimburse Attentive for the $795 million it paid for the lease. In turn, TotalEnergies agreed to invest a corresponding amount in conventional U.S. energy projects.
The complaint, filed in New York v. U.S. Department of the Interior, No. 1:26-cv-01910 (D.D.C.), asserts statutory and procedural violations under several federal laws. The states allege that DOI’s cancellation of the Attentive Lease and execution of the settlement agreement violated the Administrative Procedure Act, the National Environmental Policy Act, the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act, and the Judgment Fund Act. They argue that DOI failed to provide a reasoned explanation, consider state reliance interests, conduct required environmental review, or follow statutory procedures for canceling outer continental shelf leases. The states also contend that the settlement agreement unlawfully uses the Judgment Fund to reimburse Attentive for the lease. The states seek to vacate both the Attentive Lease’s cancelation and the settlement agreement.
Links:
Complaint
Press Release (NY Attorney General)
Global: TISFD Publishes First Draft Framework for People-Related Disclosures
On May 26, 2026, the Taskforce on Inequality and Social-related Financial Disclosures (“TISFD”) released the first draft of its framework setting out conceptual foundations, proposed general requirements, draft disclosure recommendations, and areas for future development.
TISFD is a global initiative focused on helping businesses and financial institutions understand and report on people-related impacts, dependencies, risks, and opportunities. The draft framework seeks to support convergence with ISSB, GRI, and European Sustainability Reporting Standards and to enable a more integrated approach to disclosures across people, climate, and nature.
The framework addresses human rights, labor rights, well-being, and inequality. Future editions are expected to add recommended metrics and implementation guidance.
The draft framework proposes five general requirements:
- materiality, requiring disclosure of material information about people-related impacts, dependencies, risks and opportunities;
- system-relevant information, requiring the disclosure of people-related externalities relevant to system-level risks;
- stakeholder engagement, requiring disclosure of engagement with affected stakeholders;
- scope, requiring an explanation of the scope of their assessment and disclosures, the process used in determining the scope and plans for further expansion; and
- time horizons, requiring consideration of short-, medium- and long-term objectives.
TISFD has invited feedback on the first draft by July 31, 2026. The final framework is expected in 2027.
Links:
TISFD Press Release
TISFD Framework (Beta Version 0.1)
Global: IFRS Foundation and GRI Issue Joint Statement on Sustainability Reporting Collaboration
On May 26, 2026, the International Financial Reporting Standards (“IFRS”) Foundation and the Global Reporting Initiative (“GRI”) jointly published a statement outlining further collaboration between the International Sustainability Standards Board (the “ISSB”) and the Global Sustainability Standards Board (the “GSSB”). Building on the prior Memorandum of Understanding signed by the IFRS Foundation and GRI in 2022 and a joint statement on interoperability issued in May 2024, the statement clarifies how the organizations are designing a global and comprehensive sustainability reporting system, and explains its purpose and audiences.
The statement explains that the GRI Standards address an entity’s impacts on the economy, environment, and people, while the ISSB Standards focus on sustainability-related risks and opportunities that reasonably could be expected to affect an entity’s prospects. Because those purposes are distinct but complementary, the disclosure requirements may overlap where information about significant impacts is necessary to understand sustainability-related risks and opportunities. The ISSB and GSSB are therefore working to identify and, where possible, align common disclosures and explain how complementary disclosures can be used together, with the aim of reducing duplication, fragmentation, and complexity for reporting entities and information users.
Although the ISSB and GSSB make decisions separately through their own standard-setting processes, the statement notes that they continue to work together to promote efficient reporting for entities. Areas of ongoing collaboration include ISSB work on nature-related disclosures and interoperability work between GRI and the Taskforce on Nature-related Financial Disclosures; further development of GRI Sector Standards; ISSB research on human capital disclosures; and GSSB revision of labor-related standards and disclosures.
Link:
Joint Statement
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