Today, at the United Nations in New York City, President Obama inaugurated the Open Government Partnership (OGP) with Brazil, the co-chair. The OGP is a global effort to improve governance worldwide through transparency and accountability—two principals that many members of this Task Force have argued for persuasively for many years. To become a member of OGP, countries must adopt an Open Government Declaration, deliver a country action plan, and commit to independent reporting. As of today, eight countries have joined the OGP: Brazil, Indonesia, Mexico, Philippines, South Africa, United Kingdom, United States, and—the relentless crusader for anticorruption and better...
U.S. Senator Ben Cardin (D-Maryland) took to the U.S. Senate floor today to argue in favor of attaching the Energy Security Through Transparency Act (ESTT) to the financial regulatory reform legislation moving through Congress. The ESTT legislation would help bring much needed transparency to the extractive industries by requiring companies in the oil, natural gas, and minerals industries to disclose payments made to foreign governments.
Watch the video clip from C-SPAN below:
