Scroll to top

The Hill Op-ed: Why the House Must Stop the Last-second FSGG Rider on Conflict Minerals

No comments

The Hill Op-ed: Why the House Must Stop the Last-second FSGG Rider on Conflict Minerals

Posted by Enough Team on June 22, 2016

The Hill Op-ed: Why the House Must Stop the Last-second FSGG Rider on Conflict Minerals

Note: This op-ed originally appeared in The Hill and was written by Enough Project Associate Director of Policy, Sasha Lezhnev and Senior Policy Analyst, Holly Dranginis.

Yesterday, Rep. Bill Huizenga (R-Mich.) filed an 11th hour amendment to the financial services appropriations bill to de-fund enforcement of the conflict minerals provision in the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act. The amendment was adopted by the House Rules Committee and will go to the House floor for a vote today.

Including this last-minute rider would be a serious mistake for both humanitarian and business reasons. It would allow some of the world’s deadliest armed groups to profit from lucrative conflict minerals and halt much of the progress made over the past six years to improve corporate transparency in the tech sector and a range of other industries. The amendment is #95 in the Financial Services and General Government Appropriations Act (the FSGG, or H.R. 5485).

Armed conflict in eastern Congo, which since its inception in 1993 has led to at least 5.4 million deaths at last estimate, as well as widespread and brutal gender-based violence, has been fueled by a trade in minerals. Armed groups have controlled mines and trading routes for minerals, and before the bill passed in 2010, armed groups generated an estimated annual $185 million from the trade. A lawless minerals sector in Congo together with foreign demand at the end of opaque global supply chains made it easy and attractive for armed groups to terrorize mining communities and make money in the process…