State Department hired a firm that lied on its conflict of interests form
by Nick "Taco" Stracco
The State Department is in its final steps of assessing the environmental
impact of the proposed 36-inch wide, 1,179-mile long Keystone XL pipeline. The
project would bring tar sands oil from Alberta to the Gulf of Mexico for sale
abroad. The pipeline has been wrought with controversy from the start, but new
developments have turned up the heated debate. Amid criticism
from
the EPA, claims of
merely
35 permanent jobs, a
likely
increase in energy prices in America,
TransCanada's
history of tar sand spills, and
anomalies
in the existing southern section of the pipeline, opponents of Keystone XL can
now add conflict of interests to the
growing
list of reasons to reject
the proposed project.
CONSULTING
FIRM HID BUSINESS TIES TO TAR SANDS COMPANIES
Friends of the Earth along with The Checks & Balances Project recently
discovered that Environmental Resources Management (ERM), the company that
wrote the bulk of the State Department's environmental review of the project,
lied
on their conflict of interest form filed with the State Department. FOE and
the CBP compiled a
dossier
of publicly available documents showing the very clear conflict of interest and
deliberate lack of disclosure by ERM.
In
their
papers
to the federal agency, ERM assured the State Department that “ERM has no
business relationship with TransCanada or its affiliates”, when in fact the two
have been working together since at least 2011 on a pipeline in Alaska. In
addition ERM claimed to have no relationship with businesses that would be
affected by the pipeline. FOD and the CBP's report discovered that ERM has done
business with over a dozen companies with stakes in Alberta's tar sands that
are fit to benefit if the pipeline is built.
54
ARRESTED AT ERM'S OFFICE
Last
Friday a coalition of environmental groups, including 350.org and
Walk for Our Grandchildren
to orchestrate a day of civil disobedience to protest this corruption of
transparent environmental review. Over 100 people gathered at the office
building that houses ERM. 54 people entered the lobby and refused to leave when
the police asked them to do so. Six of them chained themselves to one another
with a black tube connecting their arms that read “NO KXL.”
I
personally partook in this day of action but was not one of the 54 who got
received court dates. With our friends in the lobby waiting for the next of six
police wagons to pull up, about 70 more of us were outside showing our support
for them and denouncing the lies of ERM. Many people who were intrigued by the
commotion stopped to listen to what we were upset about. Every person that gave
me the chance to fully describe the bias of ERM agreed that it is inappropriate
for the State Department to accept their report on the pipeline.
CALLING
ON THE STATE DEPARTMENT TO SCRAP THE REPORT
It
does not take extensive knowledge on the subject to understand that ERM is not
the proper firm to assess the environmental impact of the Keystone XL project.
Because of this clear breach of trust to conduct an objective study, a group of
30 organizations wrote an
open
letter to Secretary John Kerry asking him to restart the environmental
review of the project, to punish ERM for lying on federal forms, and to
initiate an investigation into why the department failed to notice these clear
conflicts of interest.
It seems possible that if FOE and the CBP did not catch this conflict of
interest, it would have gone unnoticed. It is troubling to consider that this
is likely just one of the many instances where the fossil fuel industry is secretly
gaming the system to their advantage to the detriment of the climate.
OBAMA’S CHANGING TONE ON KXL
Last month President Obama unfurled his long-awaited
climate
change plan. In it
he
stated that he would only approve the Keystone XL pipeline “only if this
project does not significantly exacerbate the problem of carbon pollution.” Bringing
the decision down to greenhouse gases was a big step.
And then in a speech in Chattanooga, TN, Obama
mocked the claims again.
“They keep on talking about this oil pipeline coming down from Canada that’s
estimated to create about 50 permanent jobs. That’s not a jobs plan,” he said with
a smirk, seeming to stifle a chuckle.
One year ago even the most optimistic environmental
activists had to admit that the future looked bleak on the Keystone XL issue.
To hear the president speak in this new way about the project is leaps and
bounds ahead from where we were. Much of this progress should be accredited to
the activists out in the streets, organizing rallies, writing letters, and
spreading the word about this corrupt process. The public debate on the
pipeline for the past few years has reeked of oil money. But that is changing thanks
to the people who know that democracy is for them, not the corporations.
Video courtesy of
Chesapeake Climate Action Network(That's me leading the chant at 1:08)
.jpeg)
.jpeg)
.jpeg)
