Members of the Overpass Light Brigade show their opposition to the Keystone XL Pipeline.
Democratic Rep. Raúl Grijalva of Arizona, co-chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, and 23 of his colleagues, have
sent a letter to President Barack Obama
asking that he delay any decision on the fate of Keystone XL tar sands pipeline until completion of an investigation by the Department of State's Office of Inspector General into conflicts of interest by the company that conducted the environmental impact statement on the proposed project. The letter states, in part:
We write today to raise serious concerns about conflicts of interest in the preparation of the pending supplemental environmental impact statement (SEIS) on TransCanada's proposed Keystone XL pipeline. The Department of State apparently overlooked these conflicts when it accepted Environmental Resources Management's (ERM) bid to perform the analysis. Because of the seriousness of the conflicts and because of allegations that ERM lied to the Department of State to get the contract, we believe no EIS from the company—draft or final—should be accepted by the administration before these issues are resolved. [...]
The Department of State Office of Inspector General is conducting an ongoing investigation of these issues, and its findings are expected next February at the earliest. It would be unwise and premature for the Department of State to release an EIS prepared by ERM while it remains under investigation for lying to federal officials about its ties to TransCanada and over a dozen oil companies with a direct stake in whether or not Keystone XL gets approved.
What's ultimately at issue is the northern segment of a 36-inch pipeline that would connect the tar sand deposits of Alberta to the oil refineries of the Texas gulf coast. The pipeline is slated to carry up to 830,000 barrels of dilbit—diluted bitumen—each day. Although the southern segment—known as the Gulf Coast Pipeline—is already complete, the northern segment requires special presidential approval because it crosses the U.S.-Canadian border. A thumbs up can only be given if the president determines that the pipeline is in the national interest.
There is more to the story below the fold.
A majority in Congress, including many Democrats, believe it is and have repeatedly pressed Obama to get on with it and quickly okay the needed presidential permit. This would require him to ignore the legal process the project is mandated to undergo. That process includes State Department review of hundreds of thousands of public comments the project's impact statement has elicited.
It was thought that State would announce its findings this month, but that now seems out of the question, according to a spokesperson for the Natural Resources Defense Council. For the president to announce a decision in the first quarter of 2014, the department's review would have to be released in the next two weeks because another 90 days of public comment is required once that happens. So Grijalva's letter may turn out to be redundant.
For several years, vigorous opposition to Keystone XL has come from indigenous groups in Canada and the United States, landowners on its proposed route and environmental advocates. Actions have included blockades and protests peppered with thousands of arrests. More than 76,000 people have signed a CREDO pledge to engage in civil disobedience to stop construction of the pipeline.
In the SEIS published in March 2013, ERM determined that Keystone XL would have few climate-change impacts, a viewpoint the Environmental Protection Agency views as insufficiently backed up by the evidence.
Given ERM's background, that is no surprise.
The firm holds membership in the American Petroleum Institute, a trade group has spent more than $20 million lobbying for the pipeline in the past five years. To get the contract for handling the environmental impact statement, ERM flat-out lied on its conflict of interest form, claiming it had no business connection to Keystone's builder, TransCanada. In fact, ERM was at the time of the bid consulting for TransCanada on the Alaska Gas Pipeline Project. It also falsely claimed not to have any “direct or indirect relationship (financial, organizational, contractual or otherwise) with any business entity that could be affected in any way by the proposed work.”
Making false claims of this sort is a federal crime. And that's what the State Department’s Inspector General is looking into.