State Department Admits Its ‘Independent’ Tar Sands Pipeline Review Was Paid For By TransCanada

[Enrique]

http://thinkprogress.org/green/2011/10/08/339695/state-department-admits-its-independent-tar-sands-pipeline-review-was-paid-for-by-transcanada/?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter

State Department Admits Its ‘Independent’ Tar Sands Pipeline Review Was Paid For By TransCanada

The State Department has admitted their environmental review of the proposed Keystone XL tar sands pipeline was conducted by a contractor paid for by the pipeline company itself, a potentially illegal conflict of interest first reported by ThinkProgress Green. The Canadian tar sands company TransCanada has applied to construct a major pipeline through the United States to pump tar sands crude to Texas refineries for the international oil market, and is awaiting approval by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and President Barack Obama. The State Department’s approval hinges upon a positive Environmental Impact Statement (EIS), required by the National Environmental Policy Act to assess whether the pipeline is in the national interest.

A State Department official has admitted to the New York Times that the EIS was conducted by a company chosen and paid by TransCanada itself, flouting NEPA’s conflict-of-interest rules:

Kerri-Ann Jones, the assistant secretary of state for oceans and international environmental and scientific affairs said that TransCanada had managed the bidding process and recommended three candidates with Cardno Entrix topping the list. The department vetted Cardno Entrix by consulting with other agencies like the Bureau of Land Management. TransCanada pays the consultant directly, but would not reveal the amount.

(...)

[JDPriestly]

1. This is precisely the kind of corporate hea vy-handedness

and circumvention of our democracy (republic if you prefer) that young people, thank God, are protesting about.

And Hillary Clinton should be held responsible for this. Why in the world was the State Department and not the EPA doing this review? What does the State Department know about our domestic environment, our water household and the dangers of these pipelines?

This is a shameful event. Hillary Clinton should resign over this. Sorry, she has in many respects done a good job. But how can she risk the water that will one day be drunk by millions of Americans including her own daughter and possibly grandchildren in this way?

Where is the responsibility for future generations?

The oil from the shale will cost more than it appears because the potential for external costs that have to be borne by future generations is just enormous.

[RufusTFirefly]

3. The fact that the company is Canadian allows them to circumvent Congress...

It's really pretty clever and diabolical.

Naomi Klein talked about this last week on Democracy Now.

Europe is working very hard to ban the tar sands oil and there’s a very good chance that oil, carried to Texas, wouldn’t actually go into the U.S. market; that much of it would be exported to Europe or Latin America. It’s going to an export port. So, they know they have to fight ahead of them, so, they hire Paul Elliott, Hillary Clinton’s campaign director, to be their lobbyist. And this is key because it’s a Canadian company and a Canadian project. It doesn’t go through Congress. The approval goes through the State Department. The State Department has to issue a certificate of national interest. So they’re very, very smart. They hire Paul Elliott as their lobbyist, who’s friends with everybody at the State Department.

This is crony capitalism at its worst.

[Poll_Blind]

2. You have got to be kidding...

:wow:

PB

[XemaSab]

4. I think it's typical for the company to pay for the EIR

but for them to select the company? That's a problem.

[Tuesday Afternoon]

k&r

:o

[Tuesday Afternoon]

5. *hic-up*

DU style

[slipslidingaway]

6. November 6th: Tar Sands Action Returns to DC

"One year from the next election, we will return to DC to try to encircle the White House to ask President Obama to reject the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline."

http://www.tarsandsaction.org/?gclid=CMjU6M-236sCFYSK4AodmFdJNw

"Today in the New York Times there was a story that made it completely clear why we have to be here. They uncovered the fact that the company building that tar sands pipeline was allowed to choose another company to conduct the environmental impact statement, and the company that they chose was a company was a company that did lots and lots of work for them. So, in other words, the whole thing was rigged top to bottom and that’s why the environmental impact statement said that this pipeline would cause no trouble, unlike the scientists who said if we build this pipeline it’s “game over” for the climate. We can’t let this pipeline get built..."

[tex-wyo-dem]

7. unfuckingbelievable!

This is crony capitalism at its worst...absolutely outrageous!

[CaliforniaPeggy]

8. Goddamn it.

I am so appalled at this, I am just sick.

How could they allow this to happen? Nah...I know.

:kick:

[court jester]

9. R&

:kick:

If someone else did... aw forget it...