WASHINGTON, DC--House Natural Resources Committee Ranking Member Peter DeFazio (D-OR) today applauded the acceptance of the United States as a candidate country of the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI), a global multi-stakeholder initiative to increase transparency and accountability in natural resources revenue management.
The EITI Board, which is comprised of oil, gas, and mining stakeholders from around the world, approved the U.S. application in Oslo, Norway on March 19.
“Companies need to pay what they owe, and the American people need to be sure they are getting a fair return from the development of their resources. The EITI is a valuable initiative to ensure that revenue collection is transparent and accountable, and I commend the Interior Department and the State Department, as well as all the other stakeholders involved, for leading the United States to full participation in this effort," said DeFazio.
The EITI standard provides for an independent administrator to reconcile company reports of government payments for oil and gas, coal, and other mining operations, with government reports of receipts, all of which will be publicly available. This will help shine a light on revenue collection and give the public and investors simplified access to useable information about the extractives industries.
The United States has one of the top-producing extractive sectors in the world, with over $14 billion in revenues collected by the federal government last year from the sectors covered by U.S. EITI on behalf of American taxpayers.
The U.S. EITI plan represents an unprecedented level of extractives transparency. Under the EITI standard, U.S. companies must publicly disclose information at the project level, consistent with the Securities and Exchange Commission regulation under Section 1504 of Dodd-Frank and a new European Union law. Global adherence to these principles of transparency and accountability promote a more stable operating environment for companies and provide citizens with important information to hold governments accountable.
“By ensuring the United States adheres to the EITI standard," said DeFazio, “we commit to living up to our own principles of openness, and set a powerful example for other countries to encourage them to do the same."
