Democrats slow to probe Keystone
Critics of the controversial Keystone XL Pipeline think they’ve uncovered a conflict-of-interest scandal that will shake the halls of Congress.
They just can’t get top Senate Democrats to help them do it.
Environmental groups opposing the $7 billion, 1,700-mile pipeline sending crude from Alberta oil sands to Texas have uncovered evidence they say shows the State Department has already made up its mind, such as internal emails showing a cozy relationship between a TransCanada lobbyist and former Hillary Clinton campaign aide with a department official working on the project.
But while House Republicans have fanned the flames of the Solyndra affair with an unending stream of letters, hearings and subpoena threats, Senate Democrats — who have all the same arrows in their quivers — have been slow to take up arms over Keystone.
Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman John Kerry, long a champion of green causes, cited a busy schedule — which includes a seat on the deficit-cutting supercommitee — as his reason for not jumping on the issue, although it involves the State Department.
Energy and Natural Resources Committee Chairman Jeff Bingaman has no plans to look into the pipeline review or the project itself before the State Department makes its decision by the end of the year.
And when Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid wrote Clinton this month to question the need for the pipeline, his office kept the letter quiet. Reid’s letter wasn’t released by his office or even publicly cited until The Washington Post referenced it in a story two weeks after it was sent.
Another pipeline critic, Sen. Ben Nelson (D-Neb.), admitted he’s not familiar with allegations that the State Department’s review of the TransCanada pipeline is not on the level.
“I haven’t spent any time looking at those charges,” Nelson said. “I just don’t think it’s that newsworthy.”
Other key Democratic partners with the environmental community like Senate Environment and Public Works Chairwoman Barbara Boxer, Energy and Commerce ranking member Henry Waxman and House Natural Resources ranking member Ed Markey have written letters and otherwise raised concerns about the pipeline, focusing on environmental and safety concerns, rather than the conflict-of-interest charges.
“The environmental and economic concerns have been and will continue to be the primary one for many members,” said Markey’s spokesman Eben Burnham-Snyder.
Unlike other Obama administration environmental and energy efforts, such as climate change legislation, the decision on the proposed pipeline lies with President Barack Obama due to the fact it would cross the U.S.-Canada border.
Pipeline opponents have waged a public campaign against the administration, protesting at the White House in August and again Tuesday outside Obama’s hotel in San Francisco.
Another major protest is scheduled for Nov. 6 at the White House. Protest organizer Bill McKibben has repeatedly stated his goal isn’t to hurt the president, but opponents realize that Democratic lawmakers may not be eager to draw much attention to criticism of the administration or allege something as serious as a conflict of interest as 2012 approaches.
“To be blunt, there’s a lot going on, but there’s also a lot of counterpressure going on not to upset the apple cart,” said Damon Moglen, director of climate and energy at Friends of the Earth.
“Democratic lawmakers in Congress are always reluctant to take on their own president,” said Jeremy Symons, senior vice president for conservation and education at the National Wildlife Federation.
Labor unions — an important constituency for Obama and a lot of other Democrats — are backing the pipeline and the jobs it could bring.
The State Department in August released a final environmental impact assessment, stating that the pipeline would have minimal adverse impact. This assessment further cemented in the minds of critics that the department is well on its way to approving the pipeline.
Clinton herself raised eyebrows in October 2010 when she said the department was “inclined” to approve the pipeline since it’s better to get oil from a friendly neighbor like Canada than from the Middle East.
“I think it’s driving the environmental community nuts because their friends in the White House and the State Department are going to grant this permit,” said Sen. Mike Johanns (R-Neb.), who along with Nelson is opposed to the proposed pathway the pipeline would take in their state.
The lack of congressional investigation has meant that the “growing influence scandal,” as Friends of the Earth has dubbed it, has developed more slowly. Friends of the Earth collected through a Freedom of Information Act request the emails between State Department officials and Paul Elliott, TransCanada’s chief Washington lobbyist — and Clinton’s national deputy campaign manager when she ran for president in 2008.
But congressional demands are faster than FOIA requests. The flames igniting any burgeoning scandal — as evidenced by the attention played on Solyndra — often grow brighter through subpoenas and other action by Congress, regardless of the validity of the charges being levied.
“This is not a legislative issue and, at this time when there’s so many other battles competing for members’ attention, it makes sense that some would focus more on those issues rather than on a decision that is still pending in the administration,” said Daniel Weiss, senior fellow at the Center for American Progress Action Fund.
Weiss also suggested that more media attention would raise more eyebrows among lawmakers.
“The more that Keystone is covered, the more you see members of Congress taking a position on it,” he said.
Thirty-three House Democrats led by Oregon Rep. Earl Blumenauer and three Senate Democrats this month did send separate letters to Clinton questioning the validity of the department’s review by referencing a New York Times article on the department’s selection of Cardno Entrix to handle the environmental review of the pipeline after reportedly listing TransCanada as a “major client.”
“Hillary Clinton’s mess is making it harder to ignore,” Symons said.
Clinton has denied any problem with the department’s review, telling The Associated Press this month that she has “no reason to believe” that the department is biased in favor of the project.
In a meeting last week with Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), department officials also stressed a decision hasn’t been made and that the environmental analysis is merely one piece of a larger, complicated review.
The announcement Monday that Broderick Johnson would be a senior adviser on Obama’s reelection team after spending time working at a lobbying shop that represented TransCanada also irks some critics. “It stinks,” said McKibben. Johnson registered as a lobbyist for TransCanada, though the company is denying he worked on its behalf.
Not everyone is necessarily waiting for congressional Democrats to throw more weight around. Friends of the Earth and the Center for Biological Diversity are among those that have already challenged the project in court.
“Our attention is focused entirely outside of Washington, outside of the Beltway, where the action really is on this issue,” Symons said. “Washington is the problem.”
Aside from the protests, the McKibben-led Tar Sands Action is also backing a print ad in The New York Times and The Washington Post, as well as on POLITICO and other news websites, slamming the State Department’s connections to TransCanada and alleging the pipeline is “an environmental crime in progress.”
http://dyn.politico.com/printstory.cfm?uuid=0BD309D8-27AF-4DB4-96A9-1BF61E6C6F5C
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