Chris Van Hollen: “with this resolution, the Senate majority is continuing its rush to overturn Obama administration consumer and investor…”

“with this resolution, the Senate majority is continuing its rush to overturn Obama administration consumer and investor protections, this time by targeting a bipartisan anticorruption measure. In 2008, under the direction of Senator Richard Lugar, Republican staff of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee produced a report, ``The Petroleum and Poverty Paradox: Assessing U.S. and International Community Efforts to Fight the Resource Curse.'' They traveled to some of the most resource-rich countries in the world and explored how government corruption, fraud, and instability prevented those nations' people from benefitting from their oil, gas, and mineral reserves. Rather than spurring national economic development, benefits were concentrated among government and military elites and organized crime. According to the nonprofit research organization Global Financial Integrity, in 2012, developing countries ``lose roughly $1 trillion per year to crime, corruption, and tax evasion.'' The 2008 Foreign Relation Committee report led to the bipartisan Cardin-Lugar amendment to direct the Securities and Exchange Commission to require that all oil, gas, and mineral companies listed on U.S. stock exchanges disclose their payments to foreign governments, including royalties, fees, taxes, and bonuses. Congress enacted the Cardin-Lugar amendment as section 1504 of the Dodd-Frank Act. These transparency provisions are critical to combatting corruption in resource-rich nations.…”