Tucked away in a bill to rewrite the rules on Wall Street, which President Barack Obama is set to sign next week, are provisions to cut into illicit trade in four minerals often used in consumer electronics like mobile telephones.
"The people of the Congo have for far too long been pawns in a bloody struggle between armed groups, who fuel their violent campaigns of terror with proceeds from illicit mining," Democratic Representative Howard Berman, chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said Thursday.
The legislation requires companies that do business in Congo and neighboring countries to tell US regulators where they obtained columbite-tantalite (coltan), cassiterite (tin ore), gold, and wolframite.
The measure also requires those firms to conduct regular audits to ensure that they are not contributing directly or indirectly to the bloody armed conflict in the region.
And the bill calls on the US State Department to submit a revised and improved strategy for dealing with the illicit minerals trade as well as a map showing the linkages between the minerals and armed groups.
International smelting firms purchase raw materials used in mobile phones from Congolese trading houses which source them in areas controlled by forces such as the Rwandan rebel Democratic Front for the Liberation of Rwanda and the DR Congolese regular army, according to the Global Witness watchdog group.
Warring parties in eastern Congo control much of the trade in valuable metals such as tin, tantalum and tungsten, as well as gold, according to Global Witness and UN rapporteurs.
Berman, key author of the new rules, called the bill "a critical first step in ending this threat to the stability of central Africa and a victory in the battle to combat injustice in one of the poorest countries in the world."
Unlike diamonds, the minerals cannot easily be chemically tested to learn their point of origin, complicating efforts to curb the illicit trade.
Some electronics firms have told US lawmakers that the audits required under the bill will cost about one penny per product, according to a congressional aide.