Federal regulators are preparing to launch "a very serious look" at requiring corporations to assess and reveal the effects of climate change on their financial health, according to a commissioner on the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Initial efforts are under way, moving the commission toward a conclusion that investment groups had sought unsuccessfully throughout much of the Bush administration: forcing public companies to report the dangers they face from releasing carbon dioxide and its warming aftermath.

"I think with the changes in the environment and everything that's been happening, it's really time for us to take another very serious look at the disclosure system in this area," Elisse Walter, one of five commissioners at the SEC, told E&E on Friday. "I think it's a very serious issue."

Read the full story here on the New York Times website.