Trump signs law rolling back disclosure rule for energy and mining companies

WASHINGTON – President Donald Trump signed his first piece of legislation on Tuesday, a measure that could presage the most aggressive assault on government regulations since President Reagan.

The bill cancels out a Securities and Exchange Commission regulation that would have required oil and gas and mining companies to disclose in detail the payments they made to foreign governments.

It is the first of a series of bills Congress is considering that would take advantage of the Congressional Review Act of 1996, which had been used only once before today. The act gives a new president and Congress the power to revoke rules and regulations promulgated by the previous administration in its final 60 legislative days.

The previous time the review act was involked was in 2001 to overturn a Clinton administration regulation about ergonomics.

“It’s a big deal,” Trump said as he signed the measure in the Oval Office. “The energy jobs are coming back. Lots of people going back to work now.”

Hill Republicans are also seeking to use the review act to overturn regulations that would prevent coal-mining operations from dumping waste into nearby waterways; restrict methane emissions by oil and gas operations on federal land; require federal contractors to self-certify that they comply with U.S. labor laws; require each state to issue annual ratings for teacher-prep programs; and introduce a planning rule for federal lands.

Supporters of the SEC regulation say it would have provided greater transparency and made corruption more difficult. The regulation was drafted in response to directions in the Dodd-Frank financial reform legislation. The directive was in an amendment backed by Sen. Benjamin Cardin, D-Md., and then-Sen. Richard Lugar, R-Ind.

Foes of the regulation, led by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the American Petroleum Institute, said the rule would put natural resource companies at a competitive disadvantage with foreign firms by disclosing too much of their contract terms. They also said that compliance would be unduly expensive.

“We think it’s a regulation that would have an unintended consequence of hurting U.S. business’s ability to compete,” Jack Gerard, president of the American Petroleum Institute, said in a recent interview. He said the SEC’s requirement that information be provided on a project basis was particularly objectionable.

But other companies, including Intel and Tiffany & Co., which make use of minerals that are produced in countries mired in conflict, have embraced the policy.

After the Senate approved the measure, Oxfam America’s senior policy adviser for extractive industries, Isabel Munilla, said in a statement that “under the guise of deregulation, senators gutted a major bipartisan accomplishment that would bring sunshine to the payments oil companies make to despots and dictators.”

The House resolution was introduced by Rep. Bill Huizenga, R-Mich., a member of the House Financial Services Committee. In the Senate, the lead sponsor was Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla.

At the Oval Office signing ceremony Tuesday, Trump said he planned to take on the Affordable Care Act adopted under President Barack Obama. Turning to House Speaker Paul Ryan R-Wisc., Trump said that “we’re working on Obamacare,” the shorthand for the Affordable Car Act he and Congress have been struggling to replace as well as repeal. “It will be very soon,” Trump said.