Sponsors (23)
The bill reduces investor exposure and may protect conservation-managed land by banning natural-asset securities from national exchanges, but at the cost of restricting financing options for land-restoration projects and pushing issuance into less transparent markets while complicating corporate finance for related firms.
Public investors and taxpayers are less exposed to a new class of securities tied to land/ecosystem performance because trading of those securities is banned on national exchanges.
Rural communities and conserved lands face reduced pressure from mainstream capital markets because keeping these natural-asset financing vehicles off national exchanges may curb financialization of land managed for conservation.
Companies that need to raise capital to manage, restore, or conserve land will have reduced access to public equity markets, making such projects harder to finance and potentially more costly.
Investors lose a regulated, liquid trading venue for these securities, which may push issuance into less transparent or less liquid markets and increase investor risk and potential losses.
The ban sweeps in affiliated firms that control or are controlled by natural-asset companies, potentially complicating corporate finance structures and disrupting broader corporate groups' ability to organize capital for related projects.
Based on analysis of 2 sections of legislative text.
Bans national securities exchanges from effecting transactions in securities issued by entities that hold and manage land-based ecological performance or ecosystem-service rights ("natural asset companies").
Prohibits national securities exchanges from effecting transactions in securities of entities defined as “natural asset companies.” It creates a statutory definition of natural asset companies as entities that hold rights to the ecological performance or ecosystem services of a defined land area and whose primary purpose is to manage, restore, conserve, or avoid materially harming those natural assets. The change is implemented by adding a new prohibition to the Exchange Act that targets a specific category of issuers and the exchanges that would list or trade their securities.
Introduced February 13, 2025 by Mark E. Green · Last progress February 13, 2025