Business groups and activists are not giving up on their fights over two controversial requirements of the Dodd-Frank Act.

One of those demands, requiring the disclosure of “conflict minerals” from the Congo, has already been met with rulemaking finalized by the Securities and Exchange Commission and upheld in court, despite a legal challenge. The Commission, however, was not able to spare a separate rule, requiring the reporting of payments made to governments for mineral extraction rights, from being vacated by a District Court judge.

Opponents of the former have filed an appeal with the hope they can still scuttle the new reporting demands. Meanwhile, supporters of the extraction rule, are urging the SEC to not back down and substantially re-propose their initial rulemaking.

As for conflict minerals disclosure rules, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the National Association of Manufacturers, and the Business Roundtable have filed a motion for expedited appeal with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia.

The appeal argues for a speedy hearing because a delay in doing so could cause “irreparable injury” and impose “extraordinary costs which cannot be recovered.” If the court can rule prior to May 2014, when the first disclosures and reports are due, it would spare companies at least “some of the costs of preparing, auditing, and filing the reports, as well as the costs of ongoing compliance in 2014.”

It would also spare them “the irreparable First Amendment injury of being forced to state on their own websites that certain of their products have not been found to be “DRC conflict free.”

The push for the SEC to stand by its extraction payments rule was made in a letter, made public this week, to Chairman Mary Jo White from a coalition of investors who represent more than $5 trillion in holdings. The group – which includes Allianz Global Investors, Boston Common Asset Management, Calvert Investment Management, Domini Social Investments, Trillium Asset Management, and UBS Global Asset Management – also sent a similar letter to Canadian officials urging them to piggyback on U.S. efforts.

In July, the SEC's rule requiring oil, gas, and mining companies to publicly disclose payments made to governments for extraction rights was vacated by a court decision. Unless the SEC revisits the regulation, the ruling means that mining and extraction companies will not have to report aggregated payments exceeding $100,000, a requirement that was to begin for fiscal years ending after Sept. 30, 2013.

In their lawsuit, plaintiffs (which included the American Petroleum Institute and U.S. Chamber of Commerce) described the burden of full disclosure as unnecessary and contrary to business interests. They disputed the provided cost-benefit analysis, and claimed the rule unconstitutionally compelled unwanted speech.

The letters sent to the SEC and Canadian officials urge that these objections not be the final word.

“The point is that putting these data in the public domain allows them to be scrutinized by local citizens; this will lift the veil of secrecy that has enabled corruption to flourish for so long in the world's most resource-dependent nations – especially in the emerging economies where extractive companies develop some of their most attractive assets,” wrote Jacob de Wit, CEO of the Dutch firm SNS Asset Management, an organizer of the letter campaign.

In Canada, Prime Minister Stephen Harper is among the officials pushing for payment disclosures and a draft agreement to do so, developed by the Mining Association of Canada and the Prospectors and Developers Association of Canada, is undergoing public review. Approximately 1,000 Canadian exploration companies are active in 100 countries, according to the activist group Publish What You Pay.