Our government is supposed to look out for our interests and protect our resources. You never want to think of your own government as biased or working against you.
Unfortunately, newly released documents indicate that the opposite is true in ongoing review of the proposed Keystone XL tar sands oil pipeline. Internal State Department documents obtained by Friends of the Earth and allies via a Freedom of Information Act request call attention to the State Department’s cozy relationship with a lobbyist from TransCanada Pipelines. The documents add to evidence that the department had a pro-pipeline bias when it was supposed to be conducting an impartial environmental impacts review.
The head lobbyist on the project? None other than Paul Elliott, formerly one of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s top campaign aides.
As the Washington Post’s Juliet Eilperin and Steve Mufson reported today, Elliott has tried to influence the State Department’s decisions from every possible angle. But that’s only part of the story. The correspondence we’ve received and other evidence shows that State Department officials tried to help TransCanada by providing inside information about State’s thought process and coaching TransCanada officials about what to say as it drafted its Environmental Impact Statement for the project.
On top of highlighting the cozy relationship between Elliott and State Department employees, the emails also raise serious questions about an oily State Department revolving door. A key State official, who, according to the emails, coached TransCanada on what to say during the environmental review process, subsequently left the department, joined a firm that represents oil interests, and testified before Congress in favor in the Keystone XL pipeline. The same official, David Goldwyn, was described in a WikiLeak cable from 2009 as having “alleviated” Canadian officials’ concerns about pipeline approval and having provided them with public relations advice, as reported by the Los Angeles Times in July.
So much for President Obama’s campaign pledge that if elected he would “tell the lobbyists in Washington that their days of setting the agenda are over.”
The emails show that TransCanada’s Elliott worked tirelessly (both before and after registering as a lobbyist, which raises questions about whether he violated the Foreign Agents Registration Act) to lobby State officials on the pipeline. And, upon receiving our FOIA request, State employees’ emails adopt a concerned tone, wondering whether the behavior presents a “conflict of interest” due to Elliott’s former relationship with Secretary Clinton.
Even prior to the release of these emails, there was good reason to be concerned about State Department bias. Secretary Clinton said last year that she was “inclined” to approve the pipeline permit, even though the environmental impact assessment upon which the decision was supposed to be based had not been completed. The newly obtained emails indicated that Clinton’s comment was just the tip of the iceberg: behind Clinton, State Department officials were coaching TransCanada and offering it assistance as its pipeline proposal moved through the permitting process.
The proposed Keystone XL pipeline crosses and has the potential to leak dirty fuel into the Ogallala Aquifer, which provides water to two million people in eight states in the Midwest. Burning tar sands oil will produce emissions three times dirtier than burning other fossil fuels, harming populations surrounding the pipeline and destroying ecosystems along its path. Should the pipeline go ahead and Canadian tar sands oil production expand, we would face a situation that is essentially “game over” for the climate, NASA’s top climate scientist, Dr. James Hansen, has said.
The documents released today (and there are more to come) provide evidence that the State Department has failed to provide an unbiased analysis of whether the Keystone XL pipeline is in the national interest. Since President Obama can’t trust the State Department to be impartial, he should instead consult independent experts. If he does so, he will have no choice but to heed their advice and reject the Keystone XL pipeline.
Click here to take action and tell President Obama to reject this oil lobbyist influence and stop the Keystone XL pipeline.
Read more about the history of our FOIA request, and view and learn more about the released documents.