Returning Home to Representative Huizenga’s Year of Deceit

Though I will always consider Grand Haven home, my career over the past six years has carried me to remote areas in rural Southeast Asia. In that time, I’ve seen firsthand how government corruption, particularly when it comes to deals to extract valuable natural resources, falls the hardest on the most vulnerable communities. Bribery and other corrupt acts by officials to line their own pockets too often keep essential revenue from flowing into public services, perpetuating extreme poverty and fueling conflict and the spread extremism. This phenomena, where so many people living in countries rich in natural resources remain deeply impoverished is known as the “resource-curse.”

But while I collaborated on environmental governance reform projects in Cambodia, it turns out Representative Bill Huizenga was busy doing the bidding of powerful oil and mining corporations and the foreign regimes they do business with by undermining an anti-corruption law that is key to combatting the resource-curse. Even worse, he’s relied on half-truths and outright lies to try to convince his constituents that his efforts to eliminate transparency somehow in their interest. Western Michigan is better than this.

In 2010, Congress enacted a bipartisan measure, Section 1504 of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform Act, to require oil, gas and mining companies to disclose the payments they make to foreign governments and the U.S. government as part of the regular financial reporting to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) required each year. The landmark transparency law is a vital tool to expose and deter corrupt backroom deals in a notoriously corrupt industry, to protect investors, and to enable communities to ensure they are getting a fair shake from the resources extracted in their backyards.

The law has long been supported on both sides of the aisle, by anti-corruption watchdogs, U.S. national security experts, investors, and faith-based and development groups, among others. Pretty much the only people who didn’t like it were the few companies that wanted to keep their dealings with corrupt foreign dictators secret. In January 2017, Representative Huizenga showed where his priorities lie by introducing H.J. Res. 41, a bill of “disapproval” that effectively undid all the work that the SEC had done to implement the transparency law, and buying companies more time to be able to keep their payments secret while the SEC started over. President Trump signed the bill into law in February.

Now, Representative Huizenga is taking his efforts a step further. In December, he introduced a new bill, H.R. 4519, that would fully repeal Section 1504 permanently. As a native of West Michigan dedicated to serving communities devastated by the actions of corrupt governments and the companies willing to exploit that corruption to increase their profits, I am embarrassed by this effort, which will only further enable corrupt extractive deals around the world. But I’m even more embarrassed by how Representative Huizenga has tried to sell both measures to his constituents.

For example, regurgitating industry talking points, Rep. Huizenga has made demonstrably false statements to suggest this will benefit West Michigan workers. In a February op-ed, Huizenga claimed the law hurt the economy in West Michigan and “has left our nation with less opportunity.” The jobs rationale is dishonest political pandering at its worst. This legislation has nothing to do with jobs. Requiring companies to simply disclose the payments they make – which they already track in the regular course of business – does nothing to harm the economy or jobs in Michigan, or anywhere else. In fact, major unions representing oil and gas workers, like the United Steelworkers, have strongly condemned Representative Huizenga’s efforts to undermine the law, explaining how important this type of transparency is to promoting conditions that keep workers safe.

Rep. Huizenga also dishonestly argues that Section 1504 would require U.S. companies to “reveal sensitive business information” to their competitors. That’s not true either. The law does not require the disclosure of any contractual details, trade secrets or strategies for competitive bidding; it simply required disclosure of how much these companies pay foreign governments. But most of their competitors already regularly disclose this information. After the law was enacted in 2010, more than 30 countries around the world, including the European Union and Canada, followed the lead of the U.S. and implemented similar transparency laws, and major oil, gas and mining companies in those countries have been reporting their payment information under those laws for years. Many of these companies have in fact emphasized the business benefits of transparency. But delay in implementing the U.S. transparency law means U.S. companies are now lagging behind the industry standard – even state-owned Russian and Chinese companies are currently more transparent than U.S. companies.

Rep. Huizenga, despite being a member of the House Financial Services Committee, also ignored the interests of investors, dubiously claiming that disclosures under the law “fails to provide investors with useful information.” However, investors representing $10-trillion in assets under management have fervently disagreed, and repeatedly supported rigorous implementation of the transparency law as key to better evaluating investment risk. Who should we trust to know what benefits investors—investors or Huizenga?

Rep. Huizenga has also claimed the law wasn’t necessary to fight corruption, because paying bribes is already illegal under U.S. law. But that misses the point. The public and civil society are the most effective tools for identifying and exposing corruption, and public disclosure of payment information allows other governments and civil society groups to investigate and hold their own governments accountable so the U.S. isn’t in the position of having to play international policeman. This power of information is a cost-effective ways of deterring companies from making illicit payments, and corrupt officials from lining their pockets with money intended for healthcare, education and other public services.

In truth, if Representative Huizenga succeeds in his mission to destroy this anticorruption law there will be only two winners: corrupt foreign regimes and the few companies that are willing to exploit that corruption to get an edge on their more transparent competitors. H.R. 4519 does nothing for his constituents, and nothing for the American people, it is simply serving the interests of D.C. lobbyists and the powerful corporations who fund Rep. Huizenga’s campaigns.

Every winter, despite the lengthy return flights from Southeast Asia, I eagerly look forward to returning to Western Michigan. In past years I have returned home with a deep sense of pride because of the work of the community and faith-based groups that humbly serve the world’s poorest. This year, it feels different. I pray that Representative Huizenga will remember who his constituents are and stop promoting policies that harm the world’s most vulnerable communities.