WASHINGTON – U.S. Senator Ben Cardin (D-Md.), Ranking Member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, released the following statement Friday after the Senate voted to repeal the Securities and Exchange Commission rule implementing Section 1504 of the Dodd Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act. The House repealed the rule Wednesday. Section 1504 was written by Cardin and former Senator Richard Lugar (R-Ind.) to promote transparency and accountability by requiring domestic and foreign oil, gas and mineral companies traded on U.S. stock exchanges to publish the payments they make to foreign governments:

“It should be lost on no one that in less than 48 hours the Republican-controlled Senate has confirmed the former head of ExxonMobil to serve as our Secretary of State, and repealed a key anti-corruption rule that ExxonMobil and the American Petroleum Institute have erroneously fought for years. Big Oil might have won the battle today, but I’m not done fighting the war against entrenched corruption that harms the American people’s interests and leaves the world’s poor trapped in a vicious cycle of poverty while their leaders prosper.”