[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 163 (2017), Part 2]
[Senate]
[Pages 1928-1929]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                              H.J. RES. 41

  Mr. SANDERS. Mr. President, I strongly opposed the Republicans' 
efforts to gut the SEC rule regarding transparency for oil and mining 
industry payments to foreign governments.
  I hope the American people are paying attention. One of the first 
substantive legislative matters that Republicans are trying to send to 
the President is a measure that makes it easier for oil companies to 
corrupt foreign governments and undermine U.S. foreign policy goals.
  This bill seeks to unravel human rights and transparency protections 
implemented by the Obama administration. The rule requires oil and 
mining companies to tell the SEC how much money they pay to foreign 
governments to extract natural resources. It is a simple, common-sense 
requirement to improve transparency and combat corruption in some of 
the most corrupt and dysfunctional countries in the world. In fact, 
dozens of other countries require that their companies report payments 
to foreign governments.
  Time and again, we have seen oil and mining companies go into other 
nations that are poor and lack basic democratic institutions and pay 
huge sums of money to autocratic corrupt regimes. According to a recent 
article in Foreign Affairs, when Rex Tillerson led Exxon as its 
chairman and CEO,

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Exxon ``cut lucrative deals with dictators in oil-rich pockets of 
Africa, extending the lifespans of autocratic regimes in places such as 
Angola, Chad, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and Equatorial 
Guinea.'' Thanks to their countries' oil reserves, the leaders of these 
poor countries have been able to remain in power for decades.
  Yet the rule is dogged by many myths and falsehoods spurred by the 
fossil fuels lobby. More than $200 million was spent by opponents of 
the rule--the oil and gas industry and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce--on 
political lobbying and campaign contributions. According to a report in 
POLITICO, when our newly confirmed Secretary of State, Rex Tillerson, 
was the CEO of Exxon Mobil, he personally lobbied vigorously against 
transparency and disclosure, saying that if other people knew how much 
his company paid foreign governments, it would be bad for his business. 
In fact, Rex Tillerson said that there was one country in particular 
where this rule would be hard for Exxon--Russia.
  Another Republican myth is that U.S. companies are at a competitive 
disadvantage because non-U.S. companies do not have to make the same 
disclosures and the rule applies only to public companies--not true. 
The U.S. law covers all oil, gas, and mining companies listed on U.S. 
stock exchanges--not simply companies based in the United States. This 
includes BP, Shell, and Total, as well as leading state-owned oil 
companies from China and Brazil, such as PetroChina and Petrobras.
  Republicans also claim that this rule increases prices at the pump--
again, not true. Corruption costs oil and mining companies millions of 
dollars every year from instability and fragility in resource-rich 
countries, which contributes to increased operating risks, waste, 
inefficiency, and delays.
  When leaders tap a country's oil revenues to keep themselves in 
power, it is called petro-authoritarianism. When the United States 
allows companies to secretly pay authoritarian governments for rights 
to their petroleum and mineral resources, we become implicit in the 
resulting human poverty and rights abuses. We cannot let that stand, 
which is why we have this SEC reporting requirement.
  I urged my colleagues to vote no on this effort to kill the important 
protections provided by the SEC rule regarding transparency for 
extractive industry payments to foreign governments. We should be 
putting human rights interests ahead of the financial interests of a 
few powerful oil companies. That is why I urged my colleagues to vote 
against putting the profits of industry above the interests of our 
Nation and lesser developed nations all over the world.

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