Isabel Munilla Senior / Oxfam America – 2015-07-22 02:15:17

http://www.oxfamamerica.org/NoSecretDeals/

ACTION ALERT: Tell the SEC: Make Big Oil publish what they pay and put an end to secret deals.

(July 21, 2015) — $1.5 trillion: that’s the share of oil profits that companies should have paid to the governments of some of the world’s poorest countries over the last five years.

But where has that money actually gone? We don’t know — and Big Oil wants to keep it that way.

Thankfully, there’s already a law on the books that requires the oil industry to make their payments to foreign governments public — Oxfam supporters like you helped get it passed as Section 1504 of the Dodd-Frank Financial Reform Act, back in 2010.

Even though oil transparency has been written in law for five years, Section 1504 still hasn’t been implemented, which means Big Oil gets to keep their payments secret and leave poor communities in the dark.

It’s up to the Securities and Exchange Commission to finish the job: they need to implement Section 1504 now. Will you stand up and demand action with us?

Take Action: Tell SEC Chair Mary Jo White to implement this law, make Big Oil publish what they pay, and put an end to secret oil deals.

The SEC has been dragging its feet on implementing this law for far too long, and the cost for communities is high. We did the math: $1.5 trillion, if used right, could put every child in school and provide basic healthcare in the world’s poorest countries — five times over.

Transparency is a hugely important tool for communities fighting poverty. When people don’t have access to information about payments paid to their governments, they can’t follow the money and root out corruption or hold public officials accountable for bad policies.

Section 1504 needs to be implemented now. We’re doing all we can behind-the-scenes — our lawyers are even suing the SEC to get them to do their job — but we can’t win without public pressure from people like you.

Please act now: Urge the SEC to finish the job on oil transparency.

Thanks for taking action and being a part of this fight.

Isabel Munilla
Senior is Policy Advisor for Extractive Industries
at Oxfam America.