Letter To Secretary Clinton

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2009

The Honorable Hillary Rodham Clinton S. Secretary of State Depal1ment of State Washington , DC 20520 Dear Secretary Clinton:

We write to express our strong support for the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (BITI) and to urge the new Administration to make revenue transparency in general a priority of U. S. foreign policy. Specifically, we urge the United States to retain its seat as a member of the EITI Board as U. S. leadership wil be crucial as the

Initiative meets new challenges in the years ahead. , As you are aware , in many resource-rich countries the oil , gas and mining revenues are all too often siphoned off into private bank accounts instead of used by the governments to build better lives for their citizens. The result is often grinding povert for the masses c!espite i'!mense oil and gas wealth overall. That is why transparency initiatives such as EITI help meet U. S.

foreign policy objectives on several key issues such as energy security, combating

corruption and promoting development. nual EITI Conference will be held in Dol , Qatar. At this conference , several On February 16- , the 4 new members of theEITI Board will be selected. It is our understanding that there is the possibility that the United States may no longer have a seat on the EITI Board. We think this would be a mistake and believe that if the United . States demonstrated its willingness to remain on the Board , it would be welcomed by fellow Board members andother

stakeholders ofthe EIT!.

The timing could not be more critical. In early 2010 , all candidate countries of the EIT! will go thro gh the process of validation to assess whether they have met the EITI criteria. How these validations are conducted and reviewed by the Board will be significant to the future viability of EIT!. We fear that to have the United States off the Board will leave a leadership gap at a critical juncture. Thank you for your support on this important issue. Sincerely,

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mgs , M.

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ChambliSS ' U. S.s. .

Mike Mcintyre , M.

Ail PRINTED ON RECYCLED PAPER