11.22.13

Senior House Dems urge rejection of disclosure waiver in U.S.-Mexico agreement

By Nick Juliano, EE News 
November 19, 2013

The top Democrats on three key House committees today urged Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) to remain steadfast in preventing legislation implementing an agreement clarifying offshore drilling rights in the Gulf of Mexico from becoming a vehicle to shield oil companies from having to disclose their payments to foreign governments.

At issue are ongoing negotiations between the House and Senate to reconcile bills that passed the two chambers to implement the U.S.-Mexico Transboundary Hydrocarbon Agreement, which delineates each country's access rights in the Gulf.

House Republicans inserted into their bill a waiver from a section of the Dodd-Frank financial reform law that would require publicly traded oil companies to disclose to the Securities and Exchange Commission their payments to foreign governments. That language was not included in a Senate version of the bill and is opposed by the Obama administration.

Reps. Peter DeFazio (D-Ore.), Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) and Eliot Engel (D-N.Y.), who are ranking members of the Natural Resources, Financial Services and Foreign Affairs committees, today wrote to Reid urging him to keep the Dodd-Frank waiver out of the law.

"Resource revenue transparency allows shareholders to make better-informed assessments of risks and opportunity costs, threats to corporate reputation, and the long-term prospects of the companies in which they invest," the Democratic trio wrote. "Public disclosure of extractive revenues is also fundamental to improving governance, curbing corruption, improving revenue management, and allowing greater accountability from governments for spending that serves the public interest."

The three Democrats also cited recent statements from the American Petroleum Institute, the oil industry's top lobbying group, supporting passage of the Senate-passed transboundary bill (E&E Daily, Oct. 22). That, they said, is "a sign that even industry is now more interested in a quick implementation of the US-Mexican deal than in rolling back the disclosure mandate."