U.S. withdraws from extractive industries anti-corruption effort
NEW YORK (Reuters) - (In Nov. 2 story, corrects first sentence to say that United States is withdrawing from EITI as an implementing country, instead of withdrawing from EITI itself; corrects organization of Michael Ross to the Project on Resources, Development, and Governance, instead of the Project on Resources Governance and Development, paragraph 6)
The United States has withdrawn as an implementing country from the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI), an international effort to fight corruption in managing revenues from oil, gas and mineral extraction.
There had been doubts about continued U.S. participation in the EITI since earlier this year when Congress killed the so-called resource extraction rule, which required companies like Exxon Mobil Corp to disclose taxes and other fees paid to foreign governments, such as Russia.
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The EITI, which was founded in 2003, and which the United States joined in 2014, sets a global standard for governments to disclose their revenues from oil, gas, and mining assets, and for companies to report payments made to obtain access to publicly owned resources, as well as other donations.
It put more information in the hands of the public, said Michael Ross, executive director of the Project on Resources, Development, and Governance at the University of California Los Angeles.
More: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-eiti/u-s-withdraws-from-extractive-industries-anti-corruption-effort-idUSKBN1D2290