Keystone XL Cover Up

In March, the State Department issued its environmental review of the dirty, dangerous Keystone XL pipeline. Ignoring the many studies which show that building the pipeline will accelerate climate change and endanger communities along its route, the State Department came to the outrageous conclusion that the pipeline will have minimal environmental impacts.

But it has now been revealed that the firm hired by the State Department to write this flawed review is a dues-paying member of Big Oil’s mouthpiece in Washington, the American Petroleum Institute. And, many of the sub-contractors hired by the firm to do the Keystone review have deep ties to the oil industry.

No wonder that the administration’s own Environmental Protection Agency has criticized the State Department’s report.

The fact that the State Department ignored its own guidance and allowed a dues-paying member of the American Petroleum Institute to write the environmental review of the Keystone is scandalous enough. But making matters worse, State Department employees were actively involved in an attempt to cover up this firm’s ties to Big Oil.

Thanks to some intrepid reporting from Mother Jones, we know that someone in the State Department redacted the official disclosure forms that would have revealed these ties.

The stakes in this fight couldn’t be higher. We simply cannot allow the administration to decide whether to approve the Keystone XL pipeline based on a flawed environmental report written by Big Oil.

Friends of the Earth