The Act reads: "SEC. 408. SENSE OF CONGRESS RELATING TO TRANSPARENCY FOR EXTRACTIVE INDUSTRIES: (2) the United States Government should commit to global leadership of transparency in extractive industries by supporting-- (A) multilateral pro-transparency efforts, such as the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative, in revenue collection, budgeting, expenditure, and wealth management"
Now the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative has, as it 2nd Principle, “We affirm that management of natural resource wealth for the benefit of a country’s citizens is in the domain of sovereign governments to be exercised in the interests of their national development.”
Given that the oil in the US was and is exploited mainly by the private sector we do not understand how the US could lend support to such a principle.
And many of us oil-cursed citizens, though we certainly support and are appreciative of some of the initiatives of EITI, we do hope that the US will not support anything that has as a stated principle that oiligarchs, petrocrats or vulgar oil-thugs, and who feel themselves independently wealthy and consider most often us citizens as a nuisance, have to manage the natural resources in our interest.
