It has been discovered today that the company charged with writing the official Environmental Impact Assessment for the proposed Keystone XL Pipeline is a member of the American Petroleum Institute - the largest lobbying group for the US oil and gas industry.
The company hired by the State Department and at the center of this latest controversy, the Environmental Resources Management Group, has already come under fire for what many critics call an overly favorable report of the Keystone XL Pipeline. In the report, ERM stated that the pipeline project, "is unlikely to have a substantial impact on the rate of development" of the tar sands. Therefore, it will also have little impact on climate change.
On the heels of today's evidence of ERM's close ties to the American Petroleum Institute,six major environmental groups are calling for a new environmental assessment to be done by State on the Keystone Pipeline project.
To date, the American Petroluem Institute has spent over $22 million lobbying in favor of the construction of the Keystone Pipeline project.