Who:
Featuring Remarks By:
Senator Benjamin Cardin and Senator Richard Lugar
Additional Remarks By:
Reg Mahnas, Senior Vice President, External Affairs, Kosmos Energy
Alya Kayal, Director, Programs and Policy, The Forum for Sustainable and Responsible Investment
Dotun Oloko, Anti-corruption activist, Nigeria
Corinna Gilfillan, Head US Office, Global Witness|
Isabel Munilla, Senior Policy Advisor, Extractive Industries, Oxfam America
Jana Morgan, Director, Publish What You Pay US
When:
July 15, 2015
12:00 – 1:30pm
Where:
Dirksen Senate Office Building, Room 419
Please RSVP to rgilbert@oxfamamerica.org by July 10
Lunch will be provided
Oxfam, Global Witness and the Publish What You Pay coalition, cordially invite you to a lunch briefing on the importance of oil, gas and mining transparency laws in the US, European Union, Canada and Norway. In 2010, the US led the world with a landmark oil and mining transparency law – (the “Cardin -Lugar” provision of the Dodd-Frank Act) meant to provide investors with crucial data on the extractives sector, and to provide citizens with information to hold their governments accountable for spending billions in government revenues. The provision grew out of bi-partisan legislation that emphasized the important energy security and foreign policy benefits of increased transparency of payments from oil, gas and mining companies to host governments.
The law has inspired a tide of transparency laws around the world, setting a new global standard for financial disclosure in the sector. The European Union, Canada and Norway, including some of the largest capital markets for oil, gas and mining companies, have adopted and implemented these laws, with a wave of disclosures starting next year. Some oil and mining companies, including Kosmos Energy, Statoil, Newmont Mining and many others, already disclose their payments to governments around the world.
After starting the transparency revolution, the US has now fallen behind. Following an oil industry lawsuit, which sent regulations back to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) for revision in 2013, the SEC has still not implemented the law. In the meantime, investors worth over $6 trillion have been calling for the rule to be finalized, and 500 civil society groups from over 40 countries have done the same.
Join us for a look at the path forward for the U.S. to exert leadership in fully implementing a new global transparency standard.
