A businessman is now at the helm of the Oval office in Washington. On Tuesday, Feb. 14, President Donald Trump signed the legislation, only the third since taking over, to repeal the regulation that required the US energy and mining companies to disclose their payments to foreign countries. The legislation is the first time in 16 years that the Congressional Review Act (CRA) has been used to repeal a regulation. Under the little-known but powerful CRA, Congress can repeal any Obama administration regulations passed after June 16, 2016. The rule was born from the 2010 Dodd-Frank banking reform package, but faced a long legal battle and was not put into place until June 27, 2016. Earlier in the month, before President signed the bill into an act, the House okayed the repeal measure. The Senate too followed shortly. The House Joint Resolution 41, thus eliminated the regulation issued by the US Securities and Exchange Commission last June that would have forced energy and mining industries, involved in extraction in one form or the other, to report payments they make to governments abroad for access to natural resources. The rule was developed under the sweeping 2010 Dodd-Frank financial reforms. It was meant to fight corruption in resource-rich countries by mandating that companies on United States stock exchanges disclose the royalties and other payments that oil, natural gas, coal and mineral companies make to governments. The rule was a part of the initiatives taken by President Obama to increase the level of transparency for oil and gas companies. Proponents argued that this disclosure reduced scope for bribery and corruption in the industry. The basic objective of the regulation was to check illegal payments to governments and their functionaries, often paid by companies seeking to secure governmental contracts and concessions in resource-rich countries with lose rules and regulations. The SEC has been of the view that the regulation helps "combat government corruption through greater transparency and accountability." Republicans and energy companies have been arguing for long that the regulation added costs and caused an unfair disadvantage on overseas projects. The administration and congressional allies have also been saying over the last few weeks that the SEC rule imposes massive, unnecessary costs on United States oil, natural gas, and mining companies, putting them at a significant competitive disadvantage to foreign companies that do not have to comply. Exxon Mobil Corp., whose former CEO Rex Tillerson is now secretary of State, was one of the most vocal opponents of the rule, along with other major oil companies. According to Politico, former Exxon CEO Rex Tillerson in 2010 personally lobbied against the provision of Dodd-Frank that led to the rule during the Obama era. Siding with the oil industry and casting the rule as unnecessary and expensive, President Trump said at the signing ceremony that the legislation was part of a larger regulatory rollback that he and congressional Republicans were undertaking with the goal of economic and job recovery. After the ceremony, the White House press office also emphasized the president had "removed a costly impediment to American extraction companies helping their workers succeed." Later when President Trump asked Rep. Bill Huizenga (R-Mich.) to speak about the legislation, the measure's lead sponsor, emphasized: "Over (the last) 20 years, there's been 56,000 rules that have been put in place, with very little legislative input or oversight, and it's time that changed," he added. Yet, the critics are in open rage. After the House initially opted to repeal the bill, Isabel Munilla of Oxfam International underlined that the "The US had been at the forefront of the transparency issue, with more than 30 countries following in its footsteps to pass similar legislation. State-owned companies from Brazil, China, and Russia are all now required to disclose their payments. If the Senate follows suit in overturning this rule, the US will go from a leader into a laggard." Munilla then emphasized: "Voting to roll-back basic transparency rules provides zero benefit for the public but will instead allow corrupt elites to continue to stuff their pockets with oil money and steal from their citizens" "Trump has given an astonishing gift to the American oil lobby. Oil, gas and mining companies listed across the EU, including Russian companies, have already disclosed $150bn of payments in resource-rich countries, with no ill effects. This makes a mockery of claims by US oil companies such as Exxon that greater transparency would damage companies' competitiveness. If the European companies can do it, you have to ask – what are US companies trying to hide?" said Zorka Milin, senior legal adviser at the advocacy group Global Witness. Eric LeCompte, executive director of the religious development organization Jubilee USA, said: "In the short term, we lost a tool that can help track the billions of dollars lost to corruption and tax evasion in the developing world. Jubilee USA, which represents over 650 faith groups, fought for the passage of the Cardin-Luger rules in 2010 as a way of tackling bribery and corruption in developing countries that it argues exacerbate conflict and poverty. "Improving financial transparency and ending global poverty are two sides of the same coin," LeCompte was quoted as saying in the press. "To roll it back would be a complete abdication of US initiative and leadership on issues of corruption," said Daniel Kaufmann, president of the Natural Resource Governance Institute, an international transparency watchdog. Major oil companies have been under intense scrutiny in recent months. Late last year, Russia sold a 19.5% stake in its giant oil company Rosneft, but the full identities of those who bought it are unknown – as yet. Also, ExxonMobil, then led by Tillerson, was under investigation by Nigeria's economic and financial crimes commission over lucrative oil rights it secured in 2009 by beating out China's fourth-largest oil producer, despite apparently underbidding its rival bid by $2.25bn, the Guardian revealed last year. Critics are also pointing out that US oil majors, Exxon and Chevron aren't listed on the European exchanges. Hence they don't have to comply with the EU disclosure rules. That may give them an undue edge over other oil majors who must report project-level payments. Democrats and supporters of the SEC rule see the rollback as a victory for corruption. "The rule they're trying to repeal protects US citizens and investors from having millions of their dollars vanished into the pockets of corrupt foreign oligarchs," Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio), top Democrat on the Senate Banking Committee, said earlier. "This kind of transparency is essential to combating waste, fraud, corruption and mismanagement." A new United States is emerging, from the ashes of the November election. And this United States is too different from the one we all knew for decades.
