Ladies and gents, thank you very much for coming. First of all, we are into the season where the city tends to empty out and so we are all really delighted that you are a problem that is arguably as important here in the United States as it is around the world where we will be free hope focusing on it. Let me introduce myself and we will be conversing with. Carnegie at the endowment for international peace, and the democracy and rule of law program, not the climate and energy program. Simon is going to kick us off, simon taylor, whose one of the founders of Global Witness, which is in my view one of the most innovative and effective organizations working in this around the world and it interestingly combines advocacy with extremely rigorous investigations, and thats one of the things we will be talking byut today, a recent report Global Witness about shows activities in nigeria. He also helped galvanize a coalition of Civil Society organizations in 40 countries worldwide, working for more accountability and openness in this sector. Its called publish what you pay. Is the next to simon dean of columbia journalism , and has a whole other dimension of effort in the current political space here. Wong a bevy of awards, hes no less than 2 pulitzer prizes, the first one for reporting on the securities and exchange has somen, which again real relevance here. Hes also the author of private empire, which is a read that i recommend all of you, when youre done with this, go out and buy private empire. It tells you a lot, not just about the industry, but quite an important element of u. S. Politics at the moment. The human and Environmental Development agenda, and i just love that. Lets put those two together, human and Environmental Development side by side. And hesegos, nigeria, an expert on the oil sector in nigeria and participated in this investigation as well as some others. So thanks again, and let me just come over here and join the conversation. Means like i just have to ask your forgiveness while i do this. Let me just start, simon, by whatg you about this guide caused you and Global Witness to really feel like this was such a critical subject to investigate . Thats a good question. There were a few other people who knew but i will come to that in a second. If i can start with some very boring stats many of you will antibriberywith the convention from 1999. In 2014, they did a study of some 400 Corruption Cases which looked at the period of operation of the convention. And fully 2 3 of the cases they looked at involved just four factors. The one featured the most time instructive sector. Constructive sector. Players fromcluded wealthy countries. Quitek we can participate a lot about that. I spent the last three years looking at corruption in the mining sector. A twist that refines, for me at least, the extractors as the most corrupt sector. Everywhere we look, in certain wheres, i no longer asked is the corruption. Its more which concession is not corrupt. That the true situation. I would say there are certain members of the oil industry who i view now as corrupt because everywhere we find them, theyve been involved in corrupt deals. One of the things we been doing in this past 20 year period has been on the one hand to understand how corruption works and then look at policy prescriptions that might come to play along with other prescriptions, because were not just talking about the oil industry, were talking about how banks operate, how monies flow internationally. We can come back to that, in that discussion about solutions later. Actually to understand the different. Matters of corruption, we have to investigate. This is just merely the latest development, in our work on this case study in nigeria called opl 245. It is west africas largest oil block. Essentially, it was a deal concluded in april 2011, in the u. S. Ll, listed in but also in the u. K. And the netherlands, together with its 245. Ament, acquired they had spent two years directly negotiating with the person who earned it, which was none other than the former nigerian to tater. 1998ctator, who in april set up a Shell Company called malibu, basically a piece of paper which consisted of him as the owner, hidden by a false name. Company wasy of the a Better Call Saul lawyer in the backstreet office. Basically they were prepared to invest in nigerias largest oil block, a multibilliondollar investment essentially going to bed with a piece of paper. No skill set, no knowledge, no backup for it they must have known this was a stolen piece of real estate of the nigerian state. Various, various litigation battles have been. Plot, shellede audit, shell lusted and malibu got it back. Various litigation went on. Then we arrive at 2009. In the beginning of the negotiation over a twoyear period, with delightful emails what come out from that period which come out of court cases, one particularly notable is one where a former mi6 official, who was helping them, mr. Bonds company would probably be familiar, writing to some people further up the chain. Of, itseffect difficult to come to an arrangement where he will be happy with the amount. An interesting sort of color in the way things were preceded. The initial effort they went through to struck this deal collapsed. In the end, the thennigerian attorney general, who also happen to be a former lawyer, brokerdeal apart. When it considered that consisted of was the bipartisan of the treasury, through the net grow arrangement, run by jpmorgan. The money then filtered off into a series of other Shell Companies in nigeria, and went home where did it go . We acquired some intel emails which showed the highest levels in the country in shell, and for that matter we can include any as well, the money they knew was going to go on to highest level officials and yet they went to have a deal anyway. Shell is in possession of stolen goods, they didnt pay the Nigerian Government for these assets, and they are now being investigated in criminal investigations in multiple countries. Let me reinforce something here. So you got all of this shell with the shell arrangements, right . But what is it that they are circumventing . Theres a fairly clear nigerian law, correct . Theres multiple laws. It was illegal for him to give self as though he were the private owner. The current structure they wed in the deal consider that to have been a deliberate creator. Had they paid is tutionally required it would have to have been appropriated. What this whole thing is about tell me if i have this right, you have Nigerian Government and people assets which it by nigerian law, the payment for it needs to go into the Federation Account which is like the federal budget, right . And they directed that payment the structure was created by the deal that was constructed. Essentially a mechanism was created to bypass. Lets put this in context. Billion dollars, which we consider to be an off the back of the truck prize because we know shells internal estimates were higher, so there was a question there. . A Bargain Basement price . . A Bargain Basement price. Why would anybody from the governments perspective want to bargain a selloff price . See frome things you these emails, reports here that they there was a high level discussion within shell about how they knew there was a high likelihood through some determined mechanisms to highest level officials, including good luck jonathan, who is specifically mentioned. We have internal discussions so that money would go on. Shellll is talking to about the fact that rather than by this asset from the nigerian people, they are going to buy it as if they were the personal property of this little shell , and by calling it the personal property of these three guys, they are able to get it wicked cheap whereas if they had to buy it from the nigerian people, presumably the nigerian would have negotiated, if it were a government acting on behalf of its people, if it had been that type of a government that it would have been putting the screws into get a much higher price. You would expect they would look out for the interests of the people and the best price i could have gotten that far. In 2011 we have a different price construct and we have today. There are many other aspects. Saw the actualy holder of the asset the went to bat in protest. And ended up concluding a deal brokered by the attorney general. The arrangement they created was this offshore. That wasnt an arrangement the general constructed. This was an arrangement designed by the company. Well ibeen looking at has have Global Witness. I just wonder if you can place again,ory in, you know, you look at a number of other countries. Is this an aberration . Is it relatively typical . What are we dealing with in this sector . Its a fascinating case and it sounds like it will go on for a while. We will probably learn more as investigations by judicial authorities proceed. As part of a much larger picture, as simon alluded to. Thought i would mention a couple of points of context, may, for my own reporting. Sarah was kind enough to mention private empire, its a book and americanobil foreignpolicy was the idea. I started out just to write about the geopolitics of oil in the age of constraints, the age of Climate Change, the age of increased competition, and i got out and did research and thought, i dont have a story here. I had no idea what i was getting into. It seemed like a good subject at the time, and so then i made a map of where exxon mobil produced its oil. I was interested in the distortions created by wealthy, Global Corporations extracting oil in very, very poor societies. Not even just developing societies. They had been there, trying to develop some rather difficult landmark oil that had difficult geological characteristics, was a long way from the ocean. Nigerias recurring scene of these kinds of crimes because nigerian oil is very appealing, its right near the ocean, its very easy to get to market, its sweet crude, and it produces well. But chads oil is difficult oil. Chad is a very poor society, very unstable, subject to coup attempts repeatedly. I flew in and i was starting to report, i drove down to the oil area, talked to people who live down there, people who worked on the compound, government officials, Civil Society activists. After a couple weeks i looked around and said, why is exxon mobil here . They are producing a few hundred thousand barrels of oil a day in a consortium, that this is really difficult territory. Its politically unstable. Why is it necessary to be here doing this business . Theres an interesting, important answer. One of the dilemmas, at least until the shale revolution, Big Oil Companies phase was that they were producing more oil every year than they were finding. And they had run out of easy oil, basically. They had run out of domestic oil , they had run out of simple oil wereoduce, and so they going further and further into difficult frontiers, both difficult production frontiers like the arctic, where there were high risks, and difficult engineering challenges, but also difficult clinical frontiers. They just needed the oil, every 200,000 barrels a day counted trade that was the answer as to why they were in chad. Its also why they were in the placesl ginny and in where no reasonable company would want to do business, to be honest. That pressure on global Oil Producers remains. There are Technological Breakthroughs that can take you away from Political Risk and bring you into a different kind of risk like drilling in deep water or hostile, cold climates, but thats a fundamental piece of context for this constant interaction between wealthy companies and poor societies. I want to stop you on that and say, reading private empire, this was a transformational thing for me about the book, understanding this business model. Its about proving to your shareholders that for every barrel of oil you sell, you found a new one. Because who would want to buy shares in a supermarket that only has as much milk is on teh shelf. That pressure was especially strong around the time i was working on this, but yes. Thats it. The other thing you have to understand, and im sure you run into this, and it is putting bribery cases like involving shell, and maybe more shell than any into it, into a larger context, if you look at a list of the 20 largest Oil Companies in the world, 18 of them are stained own state owned. Owned by russian entities, by china, by india. Its an exception, exxon mobil, to be fully privately controlled to the extent that you consider exxon mobil independent of the United States, they see themselves as independent of the United States. What interesting about what simon and folks do, and we will get to this in the solutions part, the very fact that these companies are accountable to stakeholders other than governments that own them actually creates a point of leverage. They have different vulnerabilities, there have shareholders, securities and Exchange Commission, civil ,ociety groups they meet with whereas rosner doesnt feel those pressures. Its a complicated structure to think about trying to change because you have all these privately Held Companies that feel, why are we the guinea pigs for a global government system that doesnt touch our state owned competitors. It also means theres probably quite a lot of these transactions. So, i would say the u. S. , the last point i wanted to make by way of context is that i think important to say out loud that this administration, unlike the last republican administration, is actively departing from transparency as a solution to corruption. Industriesive transparency initiative, which we will talk about later witches by no means a magic bullet but it is part of a suite of transparency efforts that were early to in the thousandss with the support of the bush administration, and now the Trump Administration has come in and one of its first acts of rolling back obama era , pull the plug on a transparency requirement the securities and Exchange Commission was meant to move forward and have been signaling they are going to withdraw the United States from participation even more, and advanced form of participation developed during the obama administration. And we will get to this i was writing something yesterday about journalism in these times. One of the things that occurred to me, piecing through some details and this isnt surprising, maybe not that interesting. I think of the practical matter, all these rights and norms are intertwined. Intend to take them on silos, whats happening to environmental regulation, whats happening to pressure attacks on professional journalism, whats happening to transparency. Whats happening to Civil Society, not just in this luncheon but in lots of other places. You look back to the pressures on Civil Society groups like Global Witness over bally, and0 years, glo the space in which groups like that operate, it has been narrowing quite steadily. Offnow it has just pivoted a cliff. When we talk about corruption and strategies to combat it, and the extractives, looking at the you have toyears, place the question in context of a general repudiation by the United States government of a whole series of her jeans comparable to transparency. This is a real departure, a departure, just to put a punctuation mark on it, its a departure from the republican partys conspiracy. We are to circle back on a number of these points. Some work on mobile in nigeria, havent you. What have you been working on . Its important to detain in which the oil industry thats what i wanted to get that. Youre on the receiving end of a lot of these practices. Tell us what it feels like to be working with people who are on the ground where this extraction is taking place. I get a little bit worried, listening to the United States is actually pushing around the area of transparency and accountability. Coming from a background where you have seen the capacity of operating as, colony operating like a criminal , thats majorly about the key 5 Oil Companies operated world, sometimes nondeclaration of the leasing of this oil. This is a country where it is possible for 200,000 barrels of crude oil to disappear on a daily basis, either to the sea or the port. What does that look like . Can you help us picture, imagine what does it look like on the ground, and how is it possible for 200,000 barrels of oil just to walk away . It is so possible. We also need to understand is how you would also link with chevron in chad, what is the connection . And, the level of corruption with countries, you would see the recent report showing nigeria, south africa, one of the leading countries actually affected within african culture. It is not only about those countries on the ground, or characters. It is about also the conspiracy including the banks. It includes even sometimes the embassies. At the port of philadelphia in the United States, within the period of 2011 and 2014, crude iol was about 12 billion. Actually was underreported or none reported, moved from nigeria to the port of philadelphia. Just within that period. Because itpossible is such a challenging situation. Manage created by the Oil Companies, records are kept by the Oil Companies. So the oil managing company in , only in what is reported by the Oil Companies. So there is a period in the history of nigeria where we have the most kleptocratic leadership in that country, within the period of 2011, and it is not about its most about criminals mood. With companies that cause international organizations. Characters and declare nothing many times, through the country. That is why you could see assets and properties scattered all over. At the expense of what you have , you see they function of deprivation of many of those proceeds of the National Resources that are meant to provide education to these people. The migration that you see in the desert are consequences of the immigration issue is see part of the consequences that you get to read off the pages, and it is moving on that. Beyond that. I was watching the film about how the innocent children, who you sawy unaware the circumstances of what they saw. The other died of cancer. Of citizens to have to take up actions with the ,ompanies, also the government and some of those consequences that are predictable. So i want to pick up on three things just in that last sequence that i just want to see if we can drive home a little further. Is one you said is assets are scattered. I should start with exxon mobil. The process, so you can get how some of those moneys and properties that we went looking for people dont know what you were looking for. What were you looking at in london . The department of justice former oil minister in nigeria. What were you looking at in london . We were looking at properties. That, youisten to understand how they actually get those moneys at the detriment of the money and the people, exxon mobil renewed its Oil Mining License in 2007 and 2009. The committee settled by the Nigerian Government to reevaluate those oil licenses. Mobile to pay at thereby 9 million. Exxon mobil said, this is too much. The Chinese Company said, we would be willing to pay for these oil licenses. It was time for renewal. View for 3. 9 billion for exxon mobile, to 2. 85 billion. If exxon is just going to pay off, and without any other commitment. If exxon would be willing to do refineries, it would be 1. 8 billion. Exxon mobil that was the position when we had that was the position. Jonathan came into office past president of nigeria, good luck jonathan goodluck jonathan. Exxon mobil only 600 million. He wasnt the one who signed the deal. People dont know all of these names. Hes talking about goodluck jonathans oil minister. Precisely. When she came, she granted an interview, a report said, this is a dodgy deal. Deals must be counseled and we are going to do that. She got only 80 million additional for nigeria. So exxon mobil walked away with 3. 8 billion. Those are places through which many of these publicly sold as get access to this corrupt money, illicit money, and point the money to which they affect all the international markets. Let me bring that back. So youve got it at street 2 tra 2n plus an ex billion plus loss to the people of nigeria. Theres money going into pockets that are buying a bunch of nice houses in london. In the u. S. Thet was so interesting, way you drew together the impacts on the involvement of an impact on our countries, the u. K. , the u. S. , and netherlands. Number one, coconspiracy, right . Two, a lot of nice houses being built on our property markets. Lence, three,the vioen right . I looked at how these corruption helped to drive people into the ors of boko haram insurgencies in the delta area. And the flows of migration, our answer is, lets build a wall of one kind or another, and i think you are suggesting theres a connection, right, between this type of activity and people leaving home, crossing the desert, crossing the sea. Is that what you are saying . Precisely. Lets think about and steve started this conversation what do we do about this in the current context . In order, but interrupt each other. Simon simon,nt know if, youve been to equatorial guinea. Doing honest work, thats about as many times as you can go. Equatorial guinea is a very small country, used to be a spanish colony. Its capital is on an island called mellow malabo. Exxon mobil inherited a project that mobile originally developed their and by the time i went around in 2011 or so, they were producing about 500,000 barrels of oil a day. You can do the math as to what basically controlled by one family. Talked about how this kind of distortion induces violence, you walk around malabo island. This looks like a giant bank waiting to be robbed by someone who can take over the palace. If you can control the flow of oil production, the royalties that came to the government for 3 days, you could fund a Swiss Bank Accounts that would keep your family wealthy for 4 generations. It basically induced all these speed boat attackers to come over from neighboring countries, cameron, nigeria. They would just fly into the shores of malabo, jump off their boats, and run shooting at the palace to try to take it over, even if there coup only lasted for three weeks, they could get rich. And so the government of equatorial guinea, because it was such a kleptocracy and police state, they didnt have a lot of loyalty outside of the family. So it was like having a bodyguard, bank guard they could count on was difficult. So they hired moroccans, this moroccan guard force basically controlling the president ial palace and parliament, and people coming at it basically every six weeks, flying over unarmed speedboats. Rmed speedboats. It was otherworldly. You can see this in a political in a larger country. That was the most vivid, almost Cartoon Version of it ive ever seen. What you had in nigeria in freerevious regime, it was sale of stolen crude across the sea. One of the leaders of the militants came openly to tell the world that. Have the oil, they sell it, they buy with the prophets. They Even Exchange oil across the sea sorry . [inaudible] rule of law. The it creates the political insecurity you have in many of these countries because the pockets of the sale of this natural resources, whether that is going to the constitution, possibly, or to the national treasury, there are individuals appeal to all that whoever wants to cure this access to wealth. An alternative to the natural army, and create the security you have around. You look around one other short point that theres amplied, reason was loyal triggers this kind of cash corruption. Its because the oil market is so liquid and so easy to make cash sales and without accountability. It is literally a liquid market trade once you get that ship out, you can start selling in the spot market and no one will ever know about the fullness of the transaction and is no disclosure. You gote natural gas, to build a pipeline between you and the customer. You cant just take 200,000 barrels and sell them in the market and get cash for it. Likeoks a little bit more diamonds in that way. It is something easy to smuggle but in a very big, global context. I would challenge that a little bit in the sense that we were approached because of the date sof this, somewhere around the movements of the emancipation, the insurgency period. At that stage, the bunkering, for stealing wholesale barges of oil, was quite substantial. Internally it was difficult to manage. The volumes people were talking about then were much higher. And, anyway, we were approached by a consultant at the time who later went to work trying to solve some of the peace issues or lack of peace issues. When he was putting forward was, he had been approached by some companies, the issue of fingerprinting oil. Technological, leadbased research looks sufficiently good to pinpoint to the field, in some cases i would as a understand i would imagine once you start lots of different sources you can blend things from Different Countries and you start to move that. One thing that was really interesting to me was that when a particular shipment went to , they didnt have a contract. The administration said fine, we will sink the next ship unless you cough up the contract. They cut out the middle people and ended up legalizing the concession. Im really interested in what you were saying at the time, the a concern wasnt cote divoire and this refinery. It was going into i think texas, also rotterdam. It struck me that there are ways to follow where ships have come from, and there are people who know where ships have come from. It seems to beware you have discrepancies between that which is reported coming in, and that which goes out, youve got a problem. I think countries on the receiving end can do a lot more to freeze assets at that point, explain why there is this discrepancy, and youve lost the assets. To oneou have pivoted us of the things we could do, so even ahead and even separate from the companies themselves publishing what they are paying, youre saying at the port a ship comes in, documentation, where did it come from . Say, where is that from . Why shouldnt i be able to bring in a supertanker, and thats fine . This gets into the kind of belly of the beast, but there is a disconnect between the trade and the physical commodity, and it also creates lots of holes people can exploit. I think your point is right, where theres a will, weve demonstrated in financial place thens, if you highest standards of responsibility on parties to a financial transaction to know the source of the funds, to be liable to severe penalties if they allow transactions from dubious or unknown sources, you can not create a perfect system but a much tighter system, then the workarounds to engage interrupt activity just get harder and harder and harder, and the risks go up. I would think in the commodities markets, like in the real estate markets, Global Governance hasnt really got into the first round in a comparison to financial transactions. In the u. S. For example, there is something called suspicious activity reporting. If you are a clerk at a bank and a customer walks in with 7,000 of cash every thursday, and you dont know where that money is coming from, the way the u. S. System works and the penalties that slow down the banks mean that the lawyers going to tell you as a clerk, you had better file a suspicious activity report, if that person doesnt have a fruit stand or some other thing. It goes to the treasury, goes into a big database, doesnt mean the criminal investigation started, but its very rigorous and the threshold and banks for filing suspicious activity reports are relatively low. In the u. S. , what industry do you think is exempt from filing suspicious activity report . On who their clients are. Real estate. The currentce in political setting essentially, if youre a real estate broker, you have no obligation if someone shows up with an llc and a truck full of dollars and says i want to buy an apartment in a famous mans condo buildingl. There are these huge gaps in Global Governance around these kinds of transactions. I think oil is in between because you do have foreign corrupt processes. Then you have this giant market that is very fluid and not accountable in the same way. When would you like to see, if you could name the first thing that youd like to see in terms of a remedy for the type of activity and behavior that youre telling us about, what would it be . International anger. I think most importantly would be the sincerity on the part of the diplomatic community, in dealing with transactions and businesses that are concerning many other countries. Is not a blackd market transactions. It is outspoken to the extent that many of the ships, like you water,ave tracks on the and there is a declaration. Check at thed to point of origin and what has been declared. About 12 billion coming to the port of philadelphia, and to china, worth 3 billion. The gap between the declared and declaration. That is what amounts to 12 billion. It is a small amount that you want to tell me the american tem does not rule out also, many have identified corrupt officials. Whereas, citizens of the country are not granted visa because they probably cant meet them suepcts, even many of are still allowed to enter into many of these countries with this money that they have come to spend in the system and pollute the system. I think its important that this is actually reviewed the northern countries to the expense that you dont provide and, the oppression at the local toel cannot also be confined transactions like we have rightly observed, you have implications for not only your to the safety and security of your citizens into you,country, to i can tell so talk about exxon mobil, exxon mobil is connected to america, it is connected to americans. If you talk about shell, they can tell you it is the dutch companies. The reputation of countries. And also the civilization citizens. I think part of getting to that space requires that justice is done. I want to preempt this by saying im not a flog them type person. There is little more frequently than the cost of doing business consequence. If anyone actually knows about it. In this case we spent five years investigating this. We filed complaints in 6 jurisdictions now. Based on the evidence weve been telling sure, there are procedures going by and we will see whether the judicial authorities get to. I cant say much more on that because i think its down to previous stuff. Think of the hsbc case. Findings thate came out of the investigation into hsbcs mexico operations, was that the boss of hsbc was informed by the boss of hsbc me xico about the enlargement of teller windows in the branches in mexico in which drug cartel money was being paid in a straight large extralarge suitcases. He was personally informed about this. Nothing happened. There was a 1. 9 billion fine. Ifhink we worked that out you divide this by 10 years of criminal activity, and other crimes as well, it comes to profit and nobody goes to jail. The u. K. Boss of hsbc went on to become trade minister. To this day, the worst that happened to him was he spent a day being harassed by channel 4 news that asked him these questions. He basically said, im not commenting. Im not interested in people going into jail and so on but unless you put people who are ultimately responsible for these kinds of activities, the seven years they wanted this money, i000 people were killed think theres a real complicity, culpability problem. Were subjectshell to the prosecution agreement with the doj for previous ,orruption cases in nigeria while their most Senior Management were personally involved in the construction of the next corrupt deal. He even spent a 10minute period boasting about the agreement process. He was the chair of the committee that ran it. Wase that was going on, he involved. What is that about . Where is the consequence . Let me ask you a question. We do also want to talk a little bit about the domestic Political Climate that allows for some of this, but i might solicit some questions from you guys i that gain in that gain. But before we get there simon, you been doing this for a long time. I suppose we would probably all say, if you want to fix this or struggle against this effectively, because you will never fix it completely, but if you want to be effective, you will have to take some kind of in all of the above strategy. Can evaluate the effectiveness or relative value of different attempts, whether they are institutions like eiti or tactics Like Justice Department cases or bringing complaints. Big picture, after all these years, when you think about the role of Civil Society groups, you think about the role of local citizens developing their own campaigns for transparency on behalf of their own citizens, when you think about transparency initiatives by thinkolder, when you about government prosecutions and going to jail, consequences, what do you think has been the what isective strategy, the area that time and again moves the needle . We need transparency. As a revenue flows, we need to see the revenue flow disclosure down to a sufficiently granular level. For example, shell aiming at accounting directives work, this is the eu answer to doddfrank. They wanted to have magic level disclosure to find concessions in nigeria. When you have a singular figure payment, you cant say anything. We can already work that out, more or less. Its meaningless. You need to have granularity around disclosure. Oversight inetary terms of in country and outside her you need to look at the role of the banks in providing backup loans. Oil specialty was taking and pledging it through a consortium of banks in london. There was no oversight over that. You need banks to properly know who their customers are. Within days we know, he had a bank account here and a bank account there. You dont uncover that stuff in five seconds. People know. Whole. The cumulative i think what steve was getting at is, have you in your efforts to push on some of these levers, have you seen one thats actually provoke a reaction from the industry. What makes people the most responsive . Jail, i suppose. Say s just going to undermining section 1504 of doddfrank shows they have something to hide and those transparency roles rules from Global Witness too. I saw her gesturing, trying to send the word. Thats where i was going with this. I dont think disclosure alone is enough. The point of that disclosure, the doddfrank past, in june 2010, there have been two rules the fcc that would have required project level disclosure. Weve seen a panoply of reasons whyfrom the industry side this is too expensive, it doesnt work, its impossible to manage. There have been litigation efforts that set aside the first rule, the Public Record that justified the second rule was incredibly large. We had a rule that was fit for purpose, which was not only if i come back to is itou were just saying, that they think such disclosure will expose them for involvement in corrupt practices in countries where if you go back my supposition after 20 years showed me the concession as opposed to the other way around or is it that they wish to retain a corrupt and opec environment in which they can carry on making such payments. To illustrate this, have the first rule be the provision promulgated whether the fcc will that the congressionally supposed to do it. Done to the it been standard like the second world was, it wouldve been in place 10 days need for this deal was constructed. Shellyone here think wouldve paid 1 billion bond, which it amounts to, to the highest level officials and nigeria if they had to disclose of that payment . I think that they would come up with a different construction and what they shouldve done is said take it off the guys who stole it and put it up for auction and bid it. They did not do it because they knew it would be covered up. The middle guy who helped of them got ripped off. That is the environmental we are in and trying to change. We have to look at the reasons why the Congress Took down the second role which was all about u. S. Leadership in this arena. What happened and why . The arguments put forth do not stack up. I would like to finally turn to you folks, please, there will people brake microphones bringing microphones. We need you to wait for the microphone and we need you to identify yourself. , do see for example back there but i am not going to you first. I am going right here. Thank you, michael. Please articulate as clearly as you can. Yourconstitution conversation mentioning axonal frome, we have a chairman exxon mobil, is there a lack of transparency, something we dont know . The atmosphere in washington, does it speak to investigating mr. Tillerson or others like him . Couple . Ont we take a sir. Here, also in front and then we will go back. Say it again . Ken meyer. When a chad began producing oil, the money was placed in a trust fund. In the government of chad had to request money from it. How did that work out . And one more, further back. For the vocal, right here in the middle of the aisle. Yes. Frank vogel, writer the middle of ohio. I am in a group of about transparency. Comment simplyy on salute a common to simply on solutions. It is remarkable that the Justice Department on the 14th of july announced they launched a civil complaint against true nigerian businessman in this country. And, as a announced at the same time and other announced at the same time many millions to buy real estate around london. An fbieresting thing is interest now. In other words, tracing the money all the way back to the u. S. As a way of exposing the crimes to go after the corporation. That is a major change. I have aon to you is, sense, maybe i am broke, maybe i am wrong, many of us in the area focus too much on corporations and private sector and not the state of enterprise orther p tro petro others, the scale of their engagement with corruption seems to me to be absolutely massive and will not done nearly enough to focus on it or find solutions. I would be very interested in your comments. I think the scale of the money we are talking about dwarfs the bribes being played no matter how large they are. Sarah chayes you guys want to fill those three . I will take the second. You are right to recall that when the oil and chad was first developed, there was a compact involving the world bank and i think citibank in a london and the Consortium Members were producing the oil through payments through a trust fund that would be allocated to ministries for social development, education, public health. Long story short, the compact broke down under pressures when the government was attacked from sudan, he felt that he had an existential crisis. As a that point, he was producing enough oil and receiving hundreds of millions of dollars in royalties that he had of the leverage that he did not at the beginning. The thing that was so striking about that period is a snapshot of what these consortiums feel like. , he viewed the americans to help him get out of the box he put himself in, u. S. Embassy in the capital probably allocated through different departments about 10 million in aid to the country of chad. World,the poorest in the bottom at the Human Development index tables. About 10 million a year is what the government spent in chad. Exxon mobil, a royalty check with 600 million to his government. If you wonder was at the power of the United States is in your country, it is not the marines guarding the embassy spending a few Million Dollars on agriculture and another on terrorism training but the private company that writes a check for 600 million a year. That is how you get out of a compact that involves a relatively weak institutional like the world bank. Sarah chayes this is an important point, when you are, i left in afghanistan for a long time and i was not particularly impressed by president karzai. At one point, i thought if president karzai and you are trying you are getting 18 different signals from the United States of america, if you are president karzai, you have to pick who is it that speaks for the United States of america. These guys will make those decisions on the basis of calculations like this if they are really, really part factors. Just important factors. Do you want to speak to the tillerson question . He is also a subject of the book so i would direct you is there. About, i think there are two chapters of his history as a chief executive. You do not know as much now as we will probably eventually. That theves a fine Trump Administrations treasury entered into against exxon mobil in which exxon mobil has not decided to litigate against. Whatever the back story about this allegation of willful violation and sanctions on russia and the Framework Agreement and production agreements in russia. That is an area that will be interesting. That, of course, they want to defend the reputation, but it also means that a lot of information slightly to come out during the course about the back story. As a journalist, im interested in that. Another thing is this long, tangled history of exxon mobil and Climate Change and particularly the era it was funding commissions by nonscientists around early 2000. And now there is litigation is that has popped up here and there which is seems to be a whole series of back channel emails the between the chief executive and others, not quite clear that it did not come out in the initial discovery but which now has been discovered and what the content of the emails are. It is something im very curious to watch. Would like toi come in and say there is a more conceptual issue that is of grave concern to all of us. I have been looking at how hypotheses are structured, the networks structure of governments is an integrated network in which public and overlap where, to you have the identity People Holding positions in a disease separate sectors or day in these separate sectors or they are proxy servers or exchanges, quid pro quo that ties in the network together. I mean, i have to say i looked at that appointment and i said in my looking at honduras or the United States of america . Of degree of overlap functional overlap between the top reaches of a very tight group. This is not the shoemaker or the baker, the current president of france has brought a lot of Small Business people into his government. We are not talking about the local shoe maker but a very significant private sector element. One of the things that has been apparent if someone alluded to earlier in of the conversation about how exxon and chevron have been very reluctant in the u. S. Process is so much so we are in interesting moment where will the u. S. Failed validation should it come forward to validate and the supposition it wouldve failed validation. Whose fault is that . Theres been a consistent history of opposition from the two countries from having meaningful discussion whatsoever and it is one of the things i find quite interesting. The first country to be followed data, delivering. That played a key role in ensuring unlike in nigeria where there was project disclosure of a sort and it was a macro figure of the whole country. This was a force of the standard at the time which has been tightened up. I come to the point there is a history of absolute opposition particularly from exxon to the conclusion of dodd frank 1504 at opposition or through the creation of the rulemaking processes and so on. Isimpression from my sources that it a radically opposed to 1504 coming to place. And i think it is very interesting that the use of the cra resolution sarah chayes cra . Simon taylor congressional resolution. The first one was a legal ended up with the world, the first world created by the banks satisfied of the legal process. The fcc opened up to a Public Record process at substantial public Public Records created. I think if they try to litigate that, if they try because it was continued oppositional, it would have been a serious fight and i do not necessarily think they think they could win. Fit a a solid rule they purpose and the evidence supported that. What do they do . They had Congress Take a dow. That was, in my view, that comment from a fellow who comes, what of the most shameful acts of democracy, of a democratic process i have ever seen. The arguments put forward to take it down, the use of them over the last 70 years which were thrown out about 17 years which were thrown out. They do not stack up. The opposition came back and said, this does not count. People put forward the arguments. They debated to hear the counterarguments and then the vote. Voted along party lines. It was just a majority has a vote, bingo, finished. Taken down. Sarah chayes do you want to pick up on some of the questions . Isrenwaju suraj i think he not a lost on many of us from nigeria on the nomination. Sarah chayes more will challenge for the United States . Olarenwaju suraj we remember the bribery case, dick cheney of halliburton. Now with the involvement of chevron and do some of the shady deals that were talking about, which is theres no way you can tell the International Office from the National Office and license renewal of oil and operating positions. Tillerson, was more or less like what we experienced where you had a dick cheney as the Vice President and involvement with halliburton. I wanted to respond to the question about the oil industry. Of Oil Management companies high risk countries. Sarah chayes the national Oil Companies . Olarenwaju suraj yes. The problem is not to continuously devalue, it is for us to change it. Quickly, clearly, there is no way [inaudible] if you want to continue, be responsible for corruption there. You are also blaming the victims sometimes twice. Let me give you an example. Iny of these i o scenes nationalizedthese Oil Companies and they have rules and place. They candidates and [indiscernible] you will march through this process. ,he current minister in nigeria exxon mobil [indiscernible] licensed wereine he had it like 25 years. He was a thereafter the process he was there through the process. You know for sure he is not going to build their to protect the interests of mobil. You are not going to get to the root of many of these crisis. It needs to change so when were talking about corruption, not only talking about people but but corrupt [indiscernible] thank you. One here, one there. You didnt . Careful. Hurd. Name is hillary i have a two point question. I was. How the drop in Commodity Prices have affected opportunities for corruption in nigeria and how has it the insurgency against boko haram has hurt other sectors most notably defense . Sarah chayes there is one. There with glasses in the aisle. Good afternoon. Ask to speak to some the Financial Institutions wittingly or unwittingly looking tot these transactions, how help with transparency and understanding some mechanisms that you mentioned are only institution a u. S. Is a somewhere involved in that. i thought i saw one there. Thank you. My name is kelly troutman. My question is to the implications of Climate Change. ,esearch shows that there are the potential emissions already coalting gas c and and belowke us above warming two degrees celsius and expansion of Oil Industries are incompatible with a set of climate under that context. How do you see financial transparency or [inaudible] in climatection risk . Climate, at adjusting managing the phaseout of the oil industry within the next three to four decades are realistically, how does that play into producing reducing corruption . Obviously, a smaller oil industry that cannot expand into reserves and how does economic sarah chayes i think we have got it. Thanks a lot. That is going to have to wrap it up with the answers to those three excellent questions. Security . O start with Olarenwaju Suraj is a very unfortunate situation that we have to go ,hrough what actually started very unfortunate political whatstrated conflict by was the most irresponsible government we ever had in nigeria. This probably would be your normal understanding for boko haram. Was notam, like i said, anything close to a remedial ue, do not have any [indiscernible] i understand to a very large extent what is expected of the religion cult. The government of the former president that was the first of the Vice President and president and needed [indiscernible] tor the 2011 elections dachshund during the 20 election dachshund during the 2011 election during the lost a guessd of the interest of having to run for the presidency and lost and got to run for the presidency. Think, whole boko haram was seen as a joke. Unfortunately, many of the nigerians because of the level of remedial [indiscernible] it was very easy for people to buy into that argument and say. Yourself, would stop it fight to doesnt make sense. The substance of the question went to something you said, to some extent, there is robbing of the resources is fueling the kind of violence that the boko haram represents or men represent. Can you drive connection between the said july connection between the subject of this conversation and the violence and the north and the south . That,waju suraj to give if you do not understand it, you would probably be going with a previous notion that this is a geopolitical crisis. Not a religious crisis, it is political at it is actually designed by people who were within the corrupt agenda government. To get awayneed from the crisis going in that structure. To it was this bad [indiscernible] military. Ling the they were captured by whole boko haram. Recently on monitoring of summer peach ration that on some repatriation that was field. I couldnt not to help i couldnt help but see the level of violence on those communities. The fight because boko haram which is a new commitment. Fighting against, all of the local governments taken aback from boko haram. Iraq. Omes just like carries out bombings and not the militaryfronting the like we had before. The level of corruption that went into defense and luckily, this is becoming the political Financial Commission investigation and of the contracts. Showed wall of the war , it wase war to fight going to the private pockets and , from nigeria, it was owned and actually impounded in south africa with a huge, hundreds of millions of dollars which was claimed to be made by the procurement. How would you go by without cash . This level of of improvement. Say is also, i should also that even in the u. S. , there are about 4 billion, money from the military government that is still within banks in the United States. Situationshe hugest that feels not only the crisis but creates a divisions. The suicideguys get bombings. They are hired. would you take the climate . Steve coll it is a big question and important. The future of the oil industry as a growing concern and the value attributed to Oil Companies with reserves probably a function to a great extent in the timeline you are thinking about like the decades long struggle to prevent temperature ,ise above two degrees celsius probably a function of whether or not electric vehicles emerge as a dominant Transportation System around the world. Exxon mobil has been a long time, they are closely via what is threats to their industry. Valley won the door the time i was reporting and writing a book , the one that got to their attention was the possibility of a very fast pivot to lecture vehicles. It to one it that got them, at the time i was reporting a writing a book its a transportation fuel. The future of electricity does not implicate the oil industry the way it does because of the natural gas upon it. A gas of exxon is about only half of oil. In a world ofe Market Forces and powerful corporations and big, long term capital investments. The being realistic, the positive coverage to it just consequence consequence to shift will flow partly for whether or not theres a positive innovation to cleaner transportation. On the electricity side, i think it is a matter that despite the Trump Administration that the theyre just delaying their decline. They are not going be rescued. And natural gas is part of the mix, and its all other subject. Going back to the question of where our pressure points where are pressure points. The future will be decided partly by markets and partly by Public Opinion. Reason why the structural the struggle about corruption weve been talking about is different from accountability and supply change from manufacturers tennis shoes or coffee its because the oil industry is not fundamentally a consumer business. They dont care about Public Opinion. Theres a brand of the gas station where you fill your tank , but it utility function, you can boycott exxon or Phillip Dutton ed, what difference or fill up at bp, but what difference does it make . You still have to get cast. Get gas. The last thing i would say about Public Opinion is that on climate, and how urgent the Climate Risks are, and whether or not we are willing to pay a price to address those risks, we are the outliner. The question is that liberals in the world. Settled everywhere else in the world. We can isolate ourselves, but its not going to change world opinion. Americas opinion will eventually catch up with the rest of the world. Its a strange anomaly. Also in australia are the two self interested fossil fuel producers that have managed to confuse our public about questions of the rest of the world considers settled and for good reason. Flex you want to wind is up . Theres a great deal of urgency to move fast and onward. When i totally believe with what you just said, it means that part of the solution to arriving at electrification constructs that would work comes down to the investment level. If you had to invest like there was no tomorrow, like there was really no tomorrow, you might pull your finger out and put the next resources in. If i gave you i dont know what the annual budget is, but if i gave you the worlds best and said youve got five years, will your finger out and give us , storage issues, i think you have a pretty good shot at it. , in the end, it comes down to is making the money. That comes down to us, the people, and how we input into politics. That connects us with corruption. As a whole other level of corruption that goes beyond that which is illegal and into the we won the argument in 2003. Why the hell are we still talking about it . Theres an asymmetry of power at the political level, despite people who are willing to take the lead and budget policy position. The u. S. Had leadership on this, created a whole disclosure method and is now aggregating on it. Solution tong that we the people, we need to seize the initiative and get our leaders to show some leadership. We face in existential crisis. Are we going to let the eteers get trump away with it . One bigs a policy policy, even though theres a commitment, lets recapture that space. They can no longer rule out there wont be a policy, which implies no longer can say i can guarantee this field that im about to go into has a lifespan for the next 20 years. Since we are now the stage that its a growing amount, despite the setbacks of the cra resolution, that for project metal, why shouldnt we have Climate Risk Disclosure on a project by project basis . This is material for people to know, especially in a country like nigeria. Ballistic a country like uganda is embarking on oilfield futures. If you have a citizen wondering whether you want to put up with pollution as a possible product product of going ahead, because youve been sold this line that is going to create development dollars. Lets say you break from crisis from prices. Theres no infrastructure in case to put it to the coast, so costs go up. If we have Climate Action that delivers the beginning of a new regime of electrification of vehicles, the demand would go down, even if the u. S. Doesnt do anything, the rest of the world will. The price will crash in all these places where the breakeven prices higher, that will increase will be white elephants. Then we are left with the abouton of is it more bonus the leadership of the company will got for booking another reserve and the prospect of being able to pillage some of the money, if you are a corrupt leader on the other side, or is it an economic example. You think its economically viable, disclose it. We need a regime that will force companies to tell us, project by project, whether or not these are economically viable under a scenario of one a half or two degrees. That will be a very interesting scenario to see. Projects inill find the existing portfolio are not economically viable. Collects meeting a risk to investors. Back to your point about leverage, investors in these companies. This is going on to some extent because there are, for example, accounting audits of companies as to whether or not they have properly written down the value of fields, for example. This is an area where people are really getting if i push into the rti process, prior to the self implosion a year ago, there was a push to require the standard of the iti with berlin Climate Risk Disclosure. They had a connection and they flipped. Was the results a multistakeholder initiative which involves Civil Society governments and companies in the table. There was a flip out and the secretary produced the letter in response to the letter that was sent in. It was extremely well articulated, theres no real credible arguments against it. The response was utterly inadequate. It was the biggest bully in the blocks that no. , they areely for them equal players at the table. The argument is not finished. Its going to come back and resurface. These debates will continue. Globalinning of the project level disclosure mechanism, which is because every possibility requiring Climate Risk Disclosure which will be benefit to investors and citizens. With that, ladies and gentlemen. [indiscernible] very. Nk you we have a light meal and we can be here for just a couple of minutes. We will then have to record something very quickly. [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2017] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. Visit ncicap. Org] all of cspans live coverage is archived online. , youytime to cspan. Org can find them there in their entirety. Hhs secretary tom price tweeted today about the Opioid Epidemic in the United States, writing that the Opioid Crisis is a scourge that knows no bounds. Ofting with the president United States today to discuss the administrations efforts to combat this epidemic. Will be talking about the Opioid Crisis in the u. S. This afternoon from bedminster, new jersey. We take you there live when his scheduled to take place life. Also, later, discussion about the u. S. Withdrawal from the paris climate agreement with United Nations association of the usa, including the potential consequences and risks. We will have that live at 4 30 p. M. Eastern on cspan and you can stream the discussion live online at cspan. Org, or via the app. Cspan radio the situation in the middle east and policies from the bush, obama, and Trump Administrations. Its all part of the annual politicon conference, divided p. M. Eastern. Is a preview. The regime has killed more americans than any country in the world. Thousands. Any country in the world says on television [indiscernible] in the middle of the negotiations with iran, their lead chance ofr death to america and death to israel. Idea that obama would build this whole middle east policy. They were isolated and there were sanctions against them. There was lifted with no quid pro quo. In man is responsible talk about yemen, who is yemen . Saudis,g fan of the but you know, thats the situation there. Just some of tonights program on middle east policy. You can the discussion here on cspan. Next, actor and filmmaker rob reiner sits down with author and former speechwriter david frum to talk about threats to u. S. Democracy posed by russia. I spoke at politicon conference in pasadena, california. The moderator was richard louis. This is about an hour. Richard those of you who are of my age and i see a couple out there rob those of you out there who are of my age, and i see a couple of you out there, you will remember in the 1950s we were taught duck and cover drills to get under our desks in case of a nuclear attack