US Joins Transparency Initiative Amid Open Government Launch

By Samuel Rubenfeld

The U.S. committed to implementing the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative as part of the launch of the Open Government Partnership, President Barack Obama said Tuesday.

Mandel Ngan.Agence France-Presse/Getty Images

U.S. President Barack Obama speaks at the Open Government Partnership event on Sept. 20, 2011, at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel.

The U.S was one of eight nations on Tuesday to release their commitments to the Open Government Partnership, a multilateral initiative devoted to supporting national efforts to promote transparency, fight corruption, strengthen accountability and empower citizens. The partnership, according to a White House fact sheet, was led by a steering committee that included governments and civil society organizations from across the globe.
“We pledge to be more transparent, at every level—because more information on government activities should be open, timely and freely available to our people,” Obama said at the Waldorf Astoria hotel in New York, according to prepared remarks.
Obama said Tuesday that in addition to implementing rules governing transparency in the oil, gas and mining sectors, the U.S. will commit to joining the The Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative, or EITI.
The EITI is a multi-stakeholder group that advocates for disclosing payments made to foreign governments by oil, gas and mining companies. A provision of the Dodd-Frank Act mandated such payments be disclosed, but the rules governing the program have yet to be implemented. Though proposed in December, the final rules are scheduled to be released by the end of the year.
“It’s game-changing, both for domestic reasons by bringing greater clarity to what’s going on in the sector and hugely significant in terms of building a global standard” said Jonas Moberg, head of secretariat for the EITI, in an interview on the sidelines of a separate Open Government Partnership launch in New York.
In addition to the disclosure by American companies doing business overseas, the U.S. sees joining the EITI as a way to make sure “taxpayers receive every dollar they’re due from the extraction of our natural resources,”  Obama said.
In other words, an international initiative need not only influence U.S. engagement abroad.
Joining the U.S. in shepherding the partnership to fruition was Brazil, which has seen five cabinet-level officials leave government in the last nine months amid corruption scandals. Both Obama and Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff hosted a meeting of the heads of state at the Waldorf to announce the partnership’s launch; another 38 nations said they will have action plans by March 2012, when the partnership meets next in Brazil.
Along with the U.S. and Brazil, the other nations that delivered their commitments for Tuesday’s launch were Indonesia, Mexico, Norway, Philippines, South Africa and the U.K.
The U.S., according to its action plan (pdf), committed to promoting public participation in government, which included a petition platform; modernizing the management of government records; improving the administration of the Freedom of Information Act; declassifying national security information; improving agency open government plans; strengthening whistleblower protections; enhancing its enforcement of existing regulations; and advocating for legislation requiring disclosure of beneficial ownership of corporations.
On many of these issues of government openness, the Obama administration has been criticized, notably from the left as well as from political opponents to his right. For example, Salon.com blogger Glenn Greenwald has written about an “unprecedented war on whistleblowers” taken on by the Obama administration despite a pledge issued during the administration’s transition that the Obama Justice Department would protect leakers.
In Tuesday’s Open Government Partnership plan, the U.S. said it would use executive power to expand whistleblower protections should Congress not act, though it noted that “statutory reform is preferable.”
Anti-graft activists praised other elements underpinning the U.S. plan.
“Requiring companies to disclose their ultimate owner when they form will make it much harder for corrupt politicians, tax evaders and other criminals to hide their identities behind anonymous American shell companies in order to launder illicit proceeds through U.S. banks,” wrote Stefanie Ostfeld, a policy adviser for Global Witness, in an email.