Andy Barr: “Section 1504 of the Dodd-Frank Act requires the Securities and Exchange Commission--an agency not charged with the…”

“Section 1504 of the Dodd-Frank Act requires the Securities and Exchange Commission--an agency not charged with the responsibility of carrying out American foreign policy--to promulgate a resource extraction issuer disclosure rule. That regulation, which is the subject of today's resolution, requires publicly traded U.S. firms to disclose payments that they make to governments for the commercial development of oil, natural gas, or mineral resources. The intent of the rule, as my colleagues on the other side of the aisle point out, is to allow local populations to see how much revenue is generated by their natural resources; but, in practice, if fully implemented, this rule will have a very negative impact on Americans and on the people it is purported to help. First, the rule puts American firms at a severe competitive disadvantage, and we have talked about this before. Because section 1504 applies only to companies that are listed on U.S. exchanges, it forces them to disclose payments in detail in a way that would put them at a competitive disadvantage to non-U.S. companies, like those located in China. The SEC estimates that the initial cost of compliance for U.S. firms could be as high as $700 million and that the ongoing costs could be as large as $591 million annually. That is $591 million that American businesses could be putting to better and more productive use, like in creating jobs and investing in their workers.…”