News from Friends of the Earth

For Immediate Release

Contact: Kelly Trout, 202-222-0722, ktrout@foe.org Emilie Openchowski, 202-222-0723, eopenchowski@foe.org

As State Department begins additional Keystone XL review, new documents raise fresh concerns

Washington, D.C. -- A new tranche of internal State Department documents released today by public interest groups is raising fresh concerns about pro-pipeline bias -- just as the department begins a new review of the proposed Keystone XL tar sands oil pipeline’s likely impacts.

“What we see in these new documents is additional evidence that State Department officials acted as though they were on the same team as TransCanada, rather than meeting their obligation to be independent regulators,” Friends of the Earth climate and energy director Damon Moglen said. “There are also a surprising number of redactions and withheld documents, begging the question: what is it that the State Department is covering up?”

Redactions litter a series of email exchanges around two internal State Department Keystone XL meetings, raising cover-up concerns. The excisions include correspondence involving Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary Dan Clune and Assistant Secretary for Oceans, Environment, and Science Kerri-Ann Jones.

The documents were obtained via the Freedom of Information Act by Friends of the Earth, the Center for International Environmental Law and Corporate Ethics International, after the groups, represented by Earthjustice, sued the State Department to force their release.

Among other concerns, the documents:

• Indicate State official Matthew McManus viewed a meeting with TransCanada as an opportunity to “be able to address the Nebraska/water issues with one voice,” raising the alarming possibility that State was collaborating with TransCanada to push back against Nebraskans’ concerns.
• Demonstrate that in at least one lobby meeting orchestrated by Paul Elliott between TransCanada and the State Department, the controversial contractor Cardno Entrix was present.
• Suggest State and TransCanada may have been coordinating on media strategy.
• Show that State official Michael Stewart, who was called State’s “guru on all things Keystone XL” in one email, took a special tour of the Keystone I control room in Calgary with a TransCanada executive and in turn advocated high-level access for that executive.
• Reference other documents that should have been provided or listed in response to the FOIA request but were not.

Earlier in November, the Inspector General of the State Department announced it was launching an investigation into wrongdoing in the department’s review of the Keystone XL pipeline. The investigation came in response to concerns raised by more than a dozen members of Congress led by Senator Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Congressman Steve Cohen (D-Tenn.).

“The further evidence of collaboration between State Department officials and TransCanada that these documents provide should disqualify the unrepentant State Department from playing any role in the new environmental review,” Moglen said. “Given that the State Department is already under investigation by its own Inspector General for conflicts of interest and potential malfeasance in its handling of the pipeline review process, it is neither appropriate nor acceptable that the department would remain in charge.”

The new tranche of documents, and a memo providing a more detailed overview of their contents, can be found at: http://foe.org/new-keystone-xl-documents-raise-fresh-concerns-about-state-department

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Friends of the Earth fights to defend the environment and create a more healthy and just world. Our campaigns focus on promoting clean energy and solutions to climate change, keeping toxic and risky technologies out of the food we eat and products we use, and protecting marine ecosystems and the people who live and work near them.

For Immediate Release

Contact:

Kelly Trout, 202-222-0722, ktrout@foe.org; Nick Berning, 202-222-0748, nberning@foe.org

WASHINGTON, D.C.-- The Obama administration announced today that it will delay its review of the proposed Keystone XL tar sands oil pipeline to explore a new route and conduct a new environmental impacts analysis.

The announcement comes as President Obama faces escalating grassroots pressure to reject the pipeline from a broad coalition that includes climate, property rights, environmental justice and indigenous community activists. The administration has also come under withering criticism after Friends of the Earth and allied groups obtained documents via the Freedom of Information Act that indicate department officials allowed bias, lobbyist influence and conflicts of interest to corrupt the review process, resulting in an environmental impacts assessment that independent experts said was deeply flawed.

Friends of the Earth President Erich Pica had the following response to today’s news:

“By rejecting TransCanada’s plan and exploring a reroute, the Obama administration has essentially hit the reset button on the Keystone XL environmental review process. This is a major accomplishment for the climate movement and the people in the pipeline’s path, demonstrating the tremendous power of hopeful, committed and ambitious grassroots activism. Hopefully today’s announcement will halt TransCanada’s pursuit of this pipeline.

“President Obama deserves credit for rejecting a defective environmental impacts analysis that was corrupted by bias, lobbyist influence and conflicts of interest. The announcement today is an affirmation of the fact that the analysis, produced by the State Department and its contractor Cardno Entrix, grossly understated the damage likely to be caused by this pipeline. One glaring error was its failure to account for tar sands oil production’s devastating impacts on our climate.

“It is now incumbent on the Obama administration to ensure that a fair, impartial review of the pipeline’s impacts is conducted. This means that the EPA should lead in reviewing potential environmental and public health impacts and that the contractor Cardno Entrix must play no futher role. A decision about further involvement of the State Department should await completion of the Inspector General’s investigation into wrongdoing. The new environmental review must take into account the true impacts the pipeline would have on our climate and air and water.

“Make no mistake: this fight is not over. Ultimately, this dangerous pipeline must not be built. As long as TransCanada and its army of oil lobbyists seek approval, we will challenge them at every turn. And we will continue to hold President Obama accountable to his campaign promises to curb lobbyist influence and provide bold leadership on climate change. Given the International Energy Agency’s warning this week that unless we change course climate change will become irreversible within five years, bold leadership is needed more urgently than ever. President Obama can no longer afford to dither, and we can no longer afford to let him do so.”

For more information about the proposed pipeline, visit: http://www.foe.org/keystone-xl-pipeline

For more information about the influence scandal that has embroiled the State Department in recent months, visit: http://foe.org/keystone-xl-pipeline-influence-scandal

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The hope and ambition of the Occupy movement has reminded us that we need to remake financial and economic systems so that they serve people and the planet, not the other way around. We are challenged to consider ways in which we can not only resist market fundamentalism, but help create new models that promote prosperity, social equity and environmental sustainability.

The recent outpouring of public support for fundamental economic justice, as expressed through the Occupy Wall Street movement, has inspired and energized those of us at Friends of the Earth.

The Occupy actions are a moral response to massive and growing inequality in the United States and around the world, which manifests itself not only through disparities of wealth and opportunity, but of political power. In the last decade, the influence of big business has expanded to such an extent that our civil and political systems have largely been captured by corporate lobbyists and campaign donations.

The gross imbalances of economic and political power between the one percent and the rest of society are the result of decades of misguided ideology (neoliberalism) that has exalted unrestrained markets, denigrated government and maximized the influence of corporations over our economic and political lives. Today, functions that were once the domain of the public sector -- from the provision of services, to the protection of our commons, to the fighting of our wars and even the writing of our laws -- have been taken over by corporations that put profit before the public interest.

The financial sector, in particular, has created for itself an outsized role in our economic and political systems. At its height, the financial sector accounted for some 40 percent of U.S. GDP, a product of its ability to concentrate wealth and then use that wealth to make money off of money. But it is becoming increasingly clear that the well being of Wall Street is not necessarily linked with the well being of society at large; today, we see that vast amounts of wealth can be amassed by an elite in the speculative economy and yield jobless "growth" that offers little benefit to most people's lives in the real economy.

Over the past two decades, Wall Street's growing economic power also provided it with greater political and marketing power; not only was the financial sector able to buy deregulatory favors in Washington, but it also wove an enticing narrative around the wisdom and superiority of financial markets that captured the imaginations of policymakers and the public alike.

Unfettered markets and the pursuit of self-interest became not just the basis of our economic policy, but the answer to social inequality and environmental problems. Just a few short years ago, carbon trading became the centerpiece of our national climate change agenda. Many environmentalists were ready to create a massive carbon derivatives market and hand it over to Wall Street – even at a time when big banks had just destroyed our economy and forced us to bail them out.

We are all now facing the stark fiscal consequences of that bailout, and the job destruction caused by unregulated recklessness on Wall Street. Now the time has come for the environmental movement to acknowledge that the struggle for economic and environmental justice is one and the same. Rising unemployment, along with the bank bailout, the economic rescue package, two wars and the Bush tax cuts have forced us into a budget deal in which the middle class, the poor, the marginalized and the environment are bearing the burden while the one percent fail to shoulder their fair share.

Unless we act in solidarity with those engaged in diverse struggles for justice, environmental groups run the risk of protecting our parochial interests while harming the broader public interest. Although tax reform is not typically considered part of the environmental agenda, environmentalists should be working not only for the end of polluter tax giveaways, but also for the end of the Bush tax cuts, the imposition of a Wall Street transactions tax, a stop to offshore tax avoidance, increased taxes for the wealthy, and other progressive tax policies. Progressive tax, economic and financial policies are not only critical for our environment, but are also fairer and more equitable for our society.

We stand with those in the Occupy Wall Street movement and salute their efforts to refocus the national conversation on how wealth and power have become increasingly concentrated, and we call on others, especially in the environmental community, to show their support.

The moral outrage of the Occupy movement has made us recommit ourselves to our work in the areas of democratic governance, corporate power, tax and budget policy, big banks, trade rules and financial markets and regulation. We believe that poorly formed policies in each of these areas drive environmental destruction.

The vitality of this movement has been a strong reminder to us at Friends of the Earth that mass movements have usually been the basis for progressive change in our country and around the world. While we will continue to advocate for accountability and change in Washington, we recognize that change will not come from Washington -- it will come to Washington.

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Find out more about Friends of the Earth’s efforts to make our economic and financial systems work for people and the planet.