Today’s vote by the majority of Republicans on the U.S. House Financial Services Committee to overturn a bipartisan transparency law is a major setback for combating corruption and a gift to big oil companies...

In February, the Republican controlled Congress voted to overturn the 1504 rule implementing the Cardin-Lugar provision. The vote in the senate came just two days after Rex Tillerson was confirmed as Secretary of State by the Senate. Tillerson had lobbied against the law while CEO of ExxonMobil...

 In November, the U.S. Department of Interior announced that the U.S. would withdraw from implementing the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI), a multi-stakeholder global anti-corruption program for the oil, gas and mining sectors.  The move was a result of the insistence of major U.S. oil companies ExxonMobil and Chevron on keeping their U.S. tax payments secret...

All of these moves set the U.S. in opposition against a broader global trend toward greater transparency and accountability in how oil, gas and mining revenues are managed...

Claims made by the oil lobby that greater transparency will harm U.S. oil companies’ competitiveness have proven untrue. In fact, research concludes that increased transparency resulting from the disclosures required by the Cardin-Lugar anti-corruption provision could​ ​lower​ ​the​ ​cost​ ​of​ ​capital​ ​for​ ​covered​ ​companies​ ​by between $6.3 billion and ​$12.6​ ​billion.