Opening the floodgates of corporate money in the US

Global Witness asserts that the influence of corporate money in US politics, exacerbated by the Citizens United decision, has led to climate inaction and the failure to implement the Cardin-Lugar anti-corruption provision. The organization argues that the Securities and Exchange Commission's (SEC) proposed rules are insufficient because they do not require project-level payment disclosure, which is essential for detecting corruption in the extractive industries, as evidenced by cases involving Shell, Eni, and Glencore.

• The energy and natural resources sector has contributed over $638 million in campaign funds over ten years, with seven of the top twenty corporate donors originating from the oil and gas industry.
• Members of Congress who voted to disapprove of the 2016 SEC regulation implementing the Cardin-Lugar provision received, on average, six times more funding from the oil and gas industry than those who opposed the bill.
• The SEC's proposed rule for the Cardin-Lugar provision is criticized for failing to require disclosure of payment information for individual deals, which Global Witness claims is where corruption typically occurs.
• Project-level reporting is presented as the only effective deterrent against corruption, citing an instance where Shell and Eni paid over $1 billion for an oil block in West Africa to a company owned by a former oil minister.
• Project-level data enabled the discovery of a secret arrangement where Glencore redirected royalty payments from a copper mine in the Democratic Republic of Congo to middleman Dan Gertler instead of the state-owned mining company.

APA

Global Witness (n.d.). Opening the floodgates of corporate money in the US. https://globalwitness.org/en/campaigns/oil-gas-and-mining/opening-flood-gates-corporate-money-us/

Chicago

Global Witness. Opening the floodgates of corporate money in the US. n.d. https://globalwitness.org/en/campaigns/oil-gas-and-mining/opening-flood-gates-corporate-money-us/.

Wikipedia

{{cite press release |author=Global Witness |title=Opening the floodgates of corporate money in the US |url=https://globalwitness.org/en/campaigns/oil-gas-and-mining/opening-flood-gates-corporate-money-us/ |access-date=23 October 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@misc{globalwitnessndopening, author = {{Global Witness}}, title = {{Opening the floodgates of corporate money in the US}}, publisher = {Global Witness}, url = {https://globalwitness.org/en/campaigns/oil-gas-and-mining/opening-flood-gates-corporate-money-us/}, urldate = {2026-10-23}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }