Seems industry want enough loopholes to make the legislation totally ineffective and think it is unfair that a democratic elected government can bring in laws it does not like. Maybe the US should have a third house where the representatives of the financial sector and industry can just veto laws it does not like when they are not too busy being bailed out by taxpayers.

Loophole one.

They want the SEC to allow companies making a good faith but unsuccessful effort to trace the source of their conflict minerals to report their status as "indeterminate."

Would likely just lead to companies just going through the motions and everyone being unsuccessful in tracing anything. Maybe it could start a new trend though with a rash of new laws where everyone only has only to say they tried to comply so should be let off any penalty. Drunk driver..I tried not to run the guy down but I was seeing double so it was really difficult...

Loophole two.

Companies want a "phase-in" period. Rule proposed in late 2010 you could say the phase in period has already been given! Another phase in period just looks like a effort to kick the whole thing into the long grass in the hopes that everyone will forget about it. Even if it was given what's the bet that near the end there would be more requests for the period to be extended again?

Loophole three.

Companies also want an exemption for mined ore already at a smelter, and for minerals in products already in supplier inventories.

This would actually encourage some companies to stockpile dodgy supplies which is against the whole idea. Think some smelters know very well where their supplies come from which is why they are now sweating. The more industry helps with verification programmes the quicker those programmes can get to the quality needed. Giving industry more wiggle room just takes the pressure off to do so.

Loophole four.

Allowing an exemption for recycled minerals. The intent of Congress was to regulate ore and metal made directly from minerals mined in the DRC and adjoining countries.

Unfortunately can see the old arms smuggling trick happening here, you know the one where crates labelled farm machinery are really boxes of AK47's. Would be very easy to false flag supplies and companies to set up false front recycling companies and other tricks to make it seem that the supplies were recycled. If companies were only making good faith efforts to trace it would be even easier.

..Well it said it was recycled supplies on the website..

Loophole five.

Allowing a de minimis exception.

The minerals might only be very small part of what ever product they are used but if there are millions of the products being sold it adds up to a lot of supply. Have a de minimis level set high enough and the only people caught out are those supplying solid gold paper weights!

If companies are saying they cannot trace how much is used in their products how do they know what the amounts are anyway? Effectively they are saying is it all right if we can use conflict minerals in our products as long as we do not use much in each individual item. Well no as the whole idea is to reduce the amount of conflicts minerals used not supply outlets for it.

Think some companies are just frustrated that they have not managed to totally gut the rules yet. Maybe they should follow the example of other companies who are working with NGO's, the people of the DRC, and other interested parties to make the new rules work.