Political Quotes

“They state in the letter that section 1502 provisions ``. . . inadvertently incentivize buyers on the international market to pull out of the region altogether and source their minerals elsewhere. ``As a result, the conflict minerals movement has yet to lead to meaningful improvement on the ground, and has had a number of unintended and damaging consequences.'' Dodd-Frank's impact on African miners may seem unimportant to many rich-country activists, but in the Congo, it has been the question of life or death. According to a Washington Post article entitled ``How a well- intentioned U.S. law left Congolese miners jobless,'' section 1502 ``set off a chain of events that has propelled millions of Congolese miners and their families deeper into poverty.'' The article goes on to share the story of how a Congolese teenager could no longer feed himself after Dodd-Frank ravaged the country's mining sector, forcing the young man to actually join an armed group; the outcome diametrically opposed in the goal of section 1502. Mr. Chairman, no one can claim that these effects were unforeseeable. In fact, in a letter to the SEC commenting on section 1502, leaders from three Congolese mining cooperatives predicted that the conflict minerals rule would lead to a devastating boycott. These miners wrote: ``We cannot continue to suffer any longer.…”