The Securities and Exchange Commission is aiming to re-propose  a rule requiring companies to report payments made to governments for extraction rights by March 2015, according to the recently released edition of the Unified Agenda of Federal Regulatory and Deregulatory Actions. The semi-annual report, issued by the White House's Office of Office of Management and Budget provides a likely regulatory timeline for nearly 60 federal agencies.

The Dodd-Frank Act requires oil, gas, and mining companies to report aggregated project payments, exceeding $100,000, made to U.S. and foreign governments for natural resource extraction. The SEC issued a final rule to put the measure in place in August 2012, but shortly after that several groups, including the American Petroleum Institute and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, sued to block implementation. In July 2013, Judge John Bates of the Federal District Court of the District of Columbia vacated the rule and sent it back to the SEC for a rewrite. 

At the time, the SEC said it will reissue a version of the rule that addresses the court's concerns, but set no timeline for doing so. Earlier this month, in a letter to SEC Chairman Mary Jo White, executives from Royal Dutch Shell and Exxon Mobil urged the SEC to expedite the process, with the hope of harmonizing the forthoming rule with similar requirements emerging in the European Union and Norway. The Canadian government is also looking to put its own requirements in place by June 2015.

“We're really glad the SEC has added this to their active agenda,” says Joseph Williams, senior advocacy officer for Revenue Watch Institute, a non-profit public policy organization that supports the intent of the rule. “We want a rule as soon as possible, but it needs to be the right rule and in line with the laws passed in the EU and Norway over the last year. This will give citizens and investors the information they need, but will also provide a level playing field for companies in different jurisdictions.”