Instead, it’s scheduled to gut a rule forcing companies to disclose those bribes. ROD LAMKEY/POOL/AFP/Getty Images U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Jay Clayton testifies before a House Committee on Financial Services. Back in 2010, a little-known section of the major Dodd-Frank financial reform act looked poised to upend the way fossil fuel and mining companies did business abroad. Section 1504, also known as the Cardin-Lugar amendment after its Senate co-sponsors, Republican Richard Lugar and Democrat Ben Cardin, proposed to require resource extraction companies to disclose payments made to foreign governments: essentially, to disclose bribes they might be paying for the right to extract various natural resource deposits. Lawmakers and advocates explained that enhanced transparency would benefit American investors and help stabilize global supply chains, while also empowering citizens in foreign countries to hold their corrupt leaders accountable for looting the public revenues of natural resource deals.