A series of studies and polls indicates oil and gas industry and mining are the industries that account for most global corruption and that lax US laws and regulations mark the US as one of the most corrupt countries.

A corruption index published by Transparency International, based on 13 surveys globally, finds that the oil and gas industry and mining are the industries that account for most global corruption. The evaluations were performed by business leaders in each country, including the Corruption Perceptions Index, the Bribe Payers Index and the Global Corruption Barometer, and looked at bribery and “state capture” or the degree to which a country’s laws have been impacted by the influence of companies.

At number 22 out of 178 countries, with a rating of 7.1, the US was rated below virtually every European country, as well as Canada, Australia and New Zealand. It even rated a little below Hong Kong, Chile and Qatar.

But the US rates much better than Somalia, the worst-rated country, at 1.1, followed by Afghanistan and Iraq at 1.4 and 1.5.

The report identifies several key indices of corruption including bribery and attempts to “wield undue influence on government rules, regulations and decision-making through private payments to public officials”.

Here again, oil and gas and mining rated in the top five sectors, along with public works contracts and construction and real estate and property development as the sectors whose companies were most likely to use legal or illegal payments to influence the state.

In the US, government officials are legally allowed to openly receive payments from domestic companies to campaign for office in the US. The study looked at foreign payments, not domestic ones. The largest global oil and gas companies are ostensibly US companies.

The law is very specific about not building hazardous facilities in hazard zones, as in placing a LNG terminal in an earthquake and tsunami zone. Jordan Cove Energy Partners argue the proposed LNG facility is not hazardous even though fourteen oil and gas refineries caught fire after the recent earthquake in Japan. Applying for a permit in a hazard zone would seem pretty foolish unless, as these reports indicate, the industry is inured to bribing its way to approval and pushing fast track bills through the legislature like they are attempting to do in Salem right now.

The same concerns hold true with chromite mining in a designated coastal zone. Strip mining is not consistent with the goals set forth in the Coastal Zone Management Act and the permits should have been denied for that reason alone and would have dissuaded responsible companies from applying in the first place. The mining industry has a long and checkered history of public plunder, extracting billions of dollars in minerals from federal lands each year without paying a cent in royalties. It is no surprise to see mining at the top of the most corrupt industries list.

Read the report in full here

This is a global problem and efforts are underway to try and track the money earned from the extraction of public resources.

Many countries that are rich in oil, gas and other minerals are nonetheless mired in poverty because the public revenues earned from selling these resources have been squandered through corruption and lack of government accountability.

Citizens of resource-rich countries cannot hold governments and extractive companies to account and ensure that mineral resources are used in a fair and sustainable way unless they have full information about the management of these resources.