NEWS FLASH

Oil Industry Demands Less Transparency | The American Petroleum Institute is demanding the Securities and Exchange Commission withdraw and revise proposed rules that mandate disclosure of oil and mining companies’ payments to governments. A January 19 letter from the American Petroleum Institute to the SEC “alleges that the regulators’ late 2010 proposal illegally shirks adequate economic analysis, and that the SEC should take another swing,” the Hill reports. “The rules, required under 2010’s Dodd-Frank Wall Street reform law, requires companies to provide the SEC data about payments for production licenses, taxes, royalties and other aspects of energy and mineral projects in countries where they operate.”