Tell Congress to Protect Mining Communities

Natural resources shouldn't be a burden on the poor.

Yet in many countries around the world, revenues from natural resources are propping up dictators, fueling conflict, and deepening poverty. But you can help change that today.

Instead of allowing payments from oil, gas, and mining companies to their host governments to be made in secret, the Extractive Industries Transparency Disclosure (EITD) Act would require both American and foreign companies registered with the Securities and Exchange Commission to publish these financial transactions as part of their annual filing.

Such disclosure could help the citizens of resource-rich yet poor countries to demand accountability from their governments. Too often these windfalls are secretly diverted into the accounts of corrupt leaders or used to fund conflict and repression in some of the poorest countries in the world.

Please take action today. Ask your member of Congress to stand with the poor of resource-rich countries in their demand for accountability.

Subject:

Dear [ Decision Maker ],

(Edit Letter Below)

Despite significant natural resource wealth, many developing countries such as Angola, Chad, Equatorial Guinea, Mali, and Ecuador continue to suffer from extreme poverty.

In Equatorial Guinea, for example, recent oil wealth has turned the obscure island nation into an oil industry hot spot. Despite a huge boost in the country's per capita income, now more than $8,000 a year, most of the population does not have access to potable water and life expectancy has dropped to 42 years.

A 2005 Senate investigation found that more than $500 million in oil revenues went from the country to a Washington bank account controlled by Equatorial Guinea's repressive president, Teodoro Obiang. Revenue payments by US and other oil companies to the government are secret, and the contracts governing the oil fields are blocked from public scrutiny.

Tomorrow, House Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank will introduce the Extractive Industries Transparency Disclosure (EITD) Act. The EITD Act would require companies, both American and foreign, registered with the Securities and Exchange Commission to publish their natural resource revenue payments as part of their annual filing.

Transparency in these payments will enable citizens of developing countries to demand that their natural resource windfalls are spent on long-term solutions to poverty such as education, health care, and social services.

Transparency also limits the possibility that revenues from natural resources are used to fund conflict, as has happened recently in some African countries.

As your constituent, I believe the EITD Act addresses some of my deepest concerns about global poverty. I urge you to co-sponsor the Extractive Industries Transparency Disclosure (EITD) Act and advocate for its quick passage into law.

Sincerely,
[Your name]
[Your address]

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