With unresolved questions lingering about Russia’s interference in one of this country’s most hallowed democratic traditions, our election, it is peculiar that one of the apparent priorities of the new Congress is to hand Russian president Vladmir Putin a rather valuable gift. Only one month on the job the House has rushed to kill a regulation intended to make it…
The Importance of Project by Project Disclosure Indonesia’s vast natural resources wealth includes oil, gas, bauxite, silver, and gold. Indonesia is the world’s second largest tin producer, and one of the top five producers of copper and nickel. The extractives sector plays an outsized role in the Indonesian economy: in 2014, oil, gas, and minerals were responsible for a third…
This post originally appeared on www.ExtractAFact.org On June 7, Publish What You Pay – United States held the second training workshop on using extractives data and QGIS, an open source GIS mapping application. This time around, we delved deeper into visualizing data, and explored how to calculate a new data point from imported datasets in QGIS. The first training…
Champions of Section 1504 of the Dodd-Frank Act react to the release of the Security and Exchange Commission’s Final Rule. “Today is a watershed moment as the United States reclaims its position as a leader in the effort to increase global accountability and transparency. This final rule will enable citizens and local civil society organizations to hold government leaders accountable…
This post originally appeared on www.extractafact.org on June 3, 2016 On May 19, PWYP-US hosted the first of two data skills training workshops to explore ways of using the USEITI data with the open source QGIS mapping software. In the first session, our trainer, University of Maryland Geographical Sciences PhD candidate, Diana Parker, introduced the basics of organizing data as…
This post originally appeared on www.extractafact.org on June 3, 2016 Publish What You Pay – United States (PWYP-US) is excited to launch the Extract-A-Fact project! “Are we getting a good deal on our natural resources?” Extract-A-Fact will provide training modules detailing useful and creative ways to find, analyze, and visualize extractives data, as well as blog posts from PWYP-US and…
The Publish What You Pay-United States coalition along with global partners have advocated on the importance of project-level reporting requirements in transparency regulation governing the extractives sector. Civil society organizations committed to transparency and accountability have made clear that to effectively carry out their work payment disclosures are only meaningful when made at the appropriate level of specificity. Over the…
Thanks to public pressure and a lawsuit by Oxfam America, the SEC has done it, and last month saw the draft rule published. PWYP-US is currently analysing the details, but overall, it’s good news – it is comparable to the EU Directives (so most companies which are listed in both the US and EU will be able to submit the same report in both places) and the early general verdict is that this is a strong proposed rule, which requires public disclosure of payments by company and by project.
No competitive disadvantage from payment disclosure, says leading natural resource economist Transparency advocates are fighting to prevent Big Oil from weakening Section 1504 of Dodd-Frank, the landmark oil, gas, and mining payment transparency provision. Section 1504, if properly implemented, will enable citizens to monitor the revenue their governments receive from extractives companies, and help citizens ensure that revenue generated from…
This post originally appeared on www.publishwhatyoupay.org In 2010, President Obama signed into law the Dodd-Frank Act, section 1504 of which obliges all extractive companies listed in the US to publicly disclose the payments they make to governments around the world. Five years on, despite inspiring similar legislation by other jurisdictions around the world, this law has yet to come into…