President Trump says ending an anti-corruption provision in the Dodd-Frank banking law will bring jobs back to the oil industry. But at least one expert disagrees.
The rule requires public energy companies to disclose any payments made to a foreign government or the U.S. federal government. But oil analyst Mike Lynch says he doubts ending it will make much difference.
"Generally speaking, we've had very few American companies caught up in these kinds of scandals anyway, so I think the actual behavioral change will be minimal."
Lynch says what would really help is cutting the red tape; he says there's too much paperwork involved in the regulation of oil exploration.
"You have this huge patchwork of regulations that have been set up over time, piecemeal; if they could reduce that without necessarily changing the regulations that much, that would be a big help."
Lynch says softening restrictions on oil exploration in the Atlantic and changing rules about methane leakage would also help.