Political Quotes

“I strongly opposed the Republicans' efforts to gut the SEC rule regarding transparency for oil and mining industry payments to foreign governments. I hope the American people are paying attention. One of the first substantive legislative matters that Republicans are trying to send to the President is a measure that makes it easier for oil companies to corrupt foreign governments and undermine U.S. foreign policy goals. This bill seeks to unravel human rights and transparency protections implemented by the Obama administration. The rule requires oil and mining companies to tell the SEC how much money they pay to foreign governments to extract natural resources. It is a simple, common-sense requirement to improve transparency and combat corruption in some of the most corrupt and dysfunctional countries in the world. In fact, dozens of other countries require that their companies report payments to foreign governments. Time and again, we have seen oil and mining companies go into other nations that are poor and lack basic democratic institutions and pay huge sums of money to autocratic corrupt regimes.…”