Keystone contractor gives us 5 more reasons they have a conflict of interest

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Wednesday December 18, 2013 · 2:16 PM PST

2013/12/18 · 14:16

Politico just broke a big story. Environmental Resources Management, the firm hired by the State Department to do the environmental review of the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline, is a member of five oil industry booster groups that have advocated for the approval of the pipeline and spent millions to lobby for its approval.

The groups include the American Petroleum Institute, American Fuel and Petrochemical Manufacturers, and the Western Energy Alliance, all of whom signed a letter to Congress calling for approval of the pipeline. API has spent upwards of $16 million lobbying for the pipeline since 2011, not a small sum by any standard.

These latest revelations should be the final nail in the coffin for the State Department’s flawed review which had already come under fire from the EPA and environmental groups for downplaying the climate impacts of the pipeline. Add theongoing inspector general inquiry into ERM’s conflicts of interest which was launched in August, and it’s clear that Secretary Kerry and President Obama should scrap ERM’s environmental review and start anew.

It's not just me questioning the validity of the environmental review of Keystone XL.

RossHammond

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Tuesday July 16, 2013 · 5:10 PM PDT

2013/07/16 · 17:10

Last week brought fresh revelations of lying and deceit in the State Department’s environmental review of the Keystone XL pipeline. Research conducted by Friends of the Earth revealed that Environmental Resources Management -- the London-based consulting firm hired by the State Department to do the supplemental environmental impact statement for Keystone XL -- lied on its conflict of interest disclosure forms when it claimed it had no business relationships with pipeline builder TransCanada or the many oil companies active in the Canadian tar sands who are counting on Keystone to be built.

Although widely reported in Canada, the revelation that ERM lied on its conflict of interest forms has been reported on by Business Week and the Washington Post but otherwise has so far been ignored by many of the other key news organizations that have been covering the Keystone controversy.

RossHammond

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Sunday April 21, 2013 · 11:00 AM PDT

2013/04/21 · 11:00

In February John Kerry took over at the State Department, providing a glimmer of hope to those demanding that the agency finally serve as an honest broker on the review of the controversial Keystone XL pipeline. Kerry, a fierce advocate for bold action on climate change, certainly has his work cut out for him.

Since the Canadian pipeline company TransCanada first submitted its application in 2008, the State Department’s handling of the Keystone review has been plagued by conflicts of interest, insider influence and a heavy pro-pipeline bias.

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