E2-Wire

Lugar pushes SEC on oil payments disclosure rule

{mosads}The six-term senator lost his GOP primary last month and is retiring from the Senate.

The Hill’s Global Affairs blog has a much wider look at Lugar’s Monday remarks, including his criticism of use of U.S. development funding for climate programs.

The SEC rules are the subject of a battle that has drawn in oil-and-gas heavyweights like Exxon, which is squaring off with George Soros, Bill Gates and others.

The SEC is far past the deadline in the 2010 law to finish the rules, and the group Oxfam America recently filed a lawsuit to force the regulators to finalize the standards.

SEC Chairwoman Mary Schapiro — one of two SEC commissioners who is recused from the rulemaking — told a House committee in March that the commission hopes to complete the rule by the middle of this year.

An SEC spokesman did not provide any more information on timing Monday.