ONE » Rep. Barney Frank

Some Frank Talk

Maryamu.Aminu — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 16:08:53 +0000

You may recall ONE’s campaign in April urging the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to use some of the profit from the planned sale of its gold to help the world’s poorest countries. In our proposal and the accompanying campaign, we asked the IMF to make $4-5 billion of that profit available in loans to low-income countries that will not regenerate unsustainable debt burdens on their economies.

The world’s poorest countries did not contribute to the conditions that created the global economic crisis, yet they will be worst-affected, and the international community has made very little provision to help see them through the crisis. Many countries will need to borrow but we must ensure that they do not once again fall into the debt spiral which will threaten the gains they’ve made in economic growth and force them to cut spending on crucial public services such as basic healthcare, agriculture and education.

On July 21st, Representative Barney Frank, Chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, wrote to Dominique Strauss-Khan, Managing Director of the IMF, to remind him that it is important to the United States that he push for consensus on this policy among IMF members. Representative Frank has been a strong champion of using IMF gold to help alleviate the most vulnerable countries’ burdens and expressed this as a U.S. policy goal in the 2009 supplemental appropriations bill, strengthening the hand of the Treasury Secretary to negotiate such an outcome. With 17% of the total shares, the United States is the largest shareholder in the IMF and there is good cause for optimism in American leadership at the IMF. We’ll keep you posted on the progress of this effort.

Click here to read Representative Frank’s Letter.

-Maryamu Aminu, Govt. Relations Team

Frank and Lowey Debate Against the Lewis Amendment

Emily Stivers — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 21:56:23 +0000

Late this afternoon, Rep. Jerry Lewis (R-CA) introduced a potentially devastating amendment cutting $506 million in multilateral aid from the State-Foreign Operations Appropriations bill. In just a few hours before the amendment’s presentation, hundreds of ONE members across 60 key districts registered calls to their representatives asking for a NO vote on the Lewis amendment.

Watch Rep. Nita Lowey (D-NY) and Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA) eloquently argue against the amendment and defend U.S. multilateral aid on C-SPAN:

The vote on the Lewis amendment is slated for sometime between 6 and 6:30 this evening. Stay tuned for more news!

-Emily Stivers

Turning Pain at the Pump into African Prosperity

Ben Hubbard — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 14:08:35 +0000

With gas prices rising to record levels and showing no signs of slowing, energy security is quickly becoming the number one election year issue. Yesterday alone there were at least three press conferences on Capitol Hill from party leaders on the issue of high energy costs. But amid the finger-pointing and searching for quick fixes, there’s a quiet effort underway in Congress to promote US energy security while also fostering stable, long-term relationships with resource rich African countries. Few people realize that 22 percent of US crude imports came from Africa in 2006. That’s slightly more than we imported from the Middle East in the same year.

Yesterday morning I attended a hearing by the House Financial Services committee, chaired by Congressman Barney Frank, on the Extractive Industries Transparency Disclosure Act (EITD), a bill that would require oil, gas and mining companies to disclose their payments to foreign governments. It’s an important first step in promoting transparency and accountability in resource rich countries, many of which are the poorest and worst governed countries in the world. Mandatory disclosure of payments has several benefits:

It promotes US interests by combating corruption and improving the stability of US investments abroad through improved governance in oil producing countries.
It’s an important poverty reduction tool, enabling oil revenues to be managed in a more accountable manner. Citizens in poor countries will be able to hold their recalcitrant governments accountable for the revenues they received from public concessions.
It helps investors assess the risks of their investments in what are often high-risk operating environments (in fact, the Financial Services Committee heard from an investment industry spokesman who endorsed the bill wholeheartedly).
It protects companies from false or unfair accusations and blame shifting by host governments. Citizens will be able to clearly see how much companies are paying and how little benefit they are receiving.
Finally, for all the pain we’re experiencing at the pump, we shouldn’t forget that soaring commodity prices represent a tremendous opportunity for African governments to convert natural resource wealth into poverty-fighting investments for their people. Transparent disclosure of extractive payments can encourage this kind of responsible use of revenues.

Since the bill requires all oil, gas and mining companies listed on the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to disclose payments, it includes more than just US companies. In fact, fourteen out of the fifteen oil and gas companies that are publicly traded would be covered by the bill, including all three major Chinese oil companies that are active internationally. Since a vast majority of internationally competitive companies would have to report payments, US companies would not be put at a competitive disadvantage.

The bill has a long way to go before becoming law, but judging by its positive response this morning, it appears to be off to a good start. For more information and to keep track of the bill’s progress, check out www.openthebooks.org.

-Ben Hubbard