Interior Department Releases Second Annual Report of the U.S. Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative

Date: November 16, 2016

Contact:  Interior_Press@ios.doi.gov

Treci Johnson (ONRR), treci.johnson@onrr.gov

WASHINGTON – U.S. Secretary of the Interior Sally Jewell today released the second annual report of the U.S. Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (USEITI), a global initiative for governments and companies to publicly disclose revenues paid and received for development of oil, gas, mining and renewable energy development on public lands. Today’s report marks the continued commitment to the principles of open government and transparency in the disclosure of natural resource revenues.

In response to user feedback on previously released data from 2015 and requests for new ways of exploring that data, Secretary Jewell also highlighted a redesigned interactive data portal that centralizes disclosure of Department-wide natural resources revenue information. The interactive portal includes new state-level datasets along with contextual narrative to increase understanding of key topics related to the extractive industries.

“The release of this report and successful USEITI implementation is a significant collaborative accomplishment by civil society, industry and government to bring transparency and easy access to revenue data from the extraction of resources on public lands,” said Secretary Jewell. “The success of USEITI reporting not only underscores our domestic commitment to strong stewardship and accountability of natural resource revenues, but furthers President Obama’s Open Government Partnership priorities by setting a global example for the use of technology to make extractive industry data more accessible to the public owners of these resources.”

Building upon the inaugural report in 2015, the USEITI multi-stakeholder group prioritized several key activities in 2016:

• Encouraging state participation, three states joined the USEITI – Alaska, Montana and Wyoming – to expand public access to local-level natural resource data on revenues, distribution of those revenues and legal and fiscal governance of the extractive industries, as well as the economic impact of extraction in their states; 
• Updating 12 county case studies that depict the impact of specific extractive industries on local communities to further local accountability and transparency; 
• Developing new contextual information about the Coal Excise Tax, Abandoned Mine Land Reclamation Program and audit and assurance practices and controls to improve public understanding and inform discussions around the extractive industries in the United States; and 
• Releasing production data for Federal onshore and offshore areas for calendar years 2013 to 2015. The dataset includes production volumes for oil, gas, coal and other solid minerals at the Federal, State, and, in many cases, the county level.

The 25 reporting companies that voluntarily participated reported $4.8 billion in payments to government entities for non-tax, in-scope revenue streams. As a result of the comprehensive data disclosure, an independent administrator reported zero unexplained variances as they were able to reconcile 100 percent of the payments reported by the companies with revenues disclosed by the federal government. The reconciliation of $4.8 billion in company payments accounts for approximately 80 percent of the Department’s $6.1 billion in calendar year 2015 energy and mineral revenues.

Disclosure of information contained in USEITI reporting by private sector companies is currently voluntary. However, the Securities and Exchange Commission recently promulgated rules that would require publicly traded energy and mining companies to disclose payments made to the U.S. government and foreign governments and identified USEITI as an alternative mechanism for domestic compliance. The final regulations implement Section 1504 of the 2010 Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act and will serve to strengthen and complement USEITI transparency efforts.  

Participating EITI countries work collaboratively with industry and civil society representatives to implement the initiative and to publish an annual report in which governments and companies publicly disclose royalties, rents, bonuses, taxes, and other payments from oil, gas and mining resources. The United States is an EITI implementing country.