By Lisa Lambert and Sarah N. Lynch
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. Republicans on Friday repealed a securities disclosure rule aimed at curbing corruption at oil, gas and mining companies and voted to ax emissions limits on drilling operations, part of a push to remove Obama-era regulations on the energy industry.
In a 52-47 vote, the Republican-controlled Senate approved a resolution that wipes from the books a rule requiring companies such as Exxon Mobil and Chevron Corp to publicly state the taxes and other fees paid to foreign governments.
The House of Representatives already has passed the measure. President Donald Trump is expected to sign it shortly.
Exxon and other major energy corporations have fought for years to prevent the rule, required by the 2010 Dodd-Frank Wall Street reform law, from seeing the light of day.
After a series of legal battles, the Securities and Exchange Commission in June 2016 completed the regulation, which supporters say can help expose questionable financial ties U.S. companies may have with foreign governments such as Russia.
Senate Democrats raised concerns that Exxon’s chief executive during those legal fights was Rex Tillerson, who was recently confirmed as U.S. secretary of state and has worked extensively in Russia.
“It should be lost on no one that in less than 48 hours, the Republican-controlled Senate has confirmed the former head of ExxonMobil to serve as our secretary of state, and repealed a key anti-corruption rule that Exxon Mobil and the American Petroleum Institute have erroneously fought for years,” Senator Ben Cardin of Maryland said, referring to the oil industry’s trade group.
Cardin, the senior Democrat on the foreign relations committee, wrote the Dodd-Frank section on the payments to foreign governments with Richard Lugar, a former Republican senator.
Other top Senate Democrats, including New York’s Charles Schumer and Ohio’s Sherrod Brown, also condemned the vote.
On Thursday, the Senate also repealed a rule that would have limited coal companies from dumping waste into streams, cheering the battered industry.
The Senate will next consider the repeal of a rule limiting venting of the powerful greenhouse gas methane by oil and gas drillers on federal lands. The repeal was easily passed by the Republican-controlled House on Friday.
Under a barely used law known as the Congressional Review Act, lawmakers this week have stopped recently enacted rules in their tracks with simple majorities in both chambers, eliminating senators’ ability to filibuster and stall a vote.
The review act also bars agencies from revisiting an overturned rule. That could pose a legal conundrum for the SEC, which is required by law to enact a payments regulation.
Critics said the transparency rule for oil, gas and mining companies duplicated existing regulations and also was too costly and burdensome for oil companies to implement. They also said it put U.S. corporations at a competitive disadvantage with state-owned companies in other countries that do not have to share detailed information.
But the change could also give American companies an edge over Canadian and European rivals who face some of the toughest transparency rules in the world, according to company executives, legal experts and trade groups.
(Additional reporting by Timothy Gardner; Editing by Bernadette Baum and Paul Simao)
