Protest against the Keystone XL tar sands pipelines in front of The White House in Washington, DC. credit: Mark Noel
Amazing news from the State Department that its own internal watchdog unit has plans to initiate an inquiry on, wait for it, its own environmental review of the Keystone XL pipeline.
The State Department’s internal watchdog has “initiated an inquiry” into whether the contractor Foggy Bottom used for a draft environmental analysis on the proposed Keystone XL pipeline had a conflict of interest.
The move is a response to allegations from several outside groups, Doug Welty, a spokesman with the State Department Office of Inspector General, told The Hill on Friday.
I wrote about the corruption involved in the State Dept. Environmental Impact Study(EIS)
here. As the evidence mounts that the State Departments own contractor
lied on its application and has a very definite conflict of interest in seeing the Keystone XL pipeline built, the State Department has the interesting dilemma of having to investigate its own assessment.
This new development raises the possibility of another redo of the analysis assessing Keystone’s environmental impact and can only give opponents of the pipeline some optimism especially as this comes after President Obama's recent comments that he’d oppose the pipeline if it “significantly exacerbates” carbon pollution.
Please join Daily Kos and the Natural Resources Defense Council in urging President Obama to keep his promise and reject the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline.