| Dear 5849376, It just keeps getting worse. Politico reported this week that Energy Resources Management (ERM) - the contractor hired by the State Department to conduct the crucial environmental analysis of Keystone XL - is a member of no fewer than five oil-industry trade groups that are pushing for approval of Keystone XL.1 It is simply fantasy to expect that a company with such deep ties to the oil-industry would be capable of an impartial decision on a project that the industry has been so desperately demanding. It's time for Secretary of State John Kerry to end this charade once and for all and immediately halt ERM's involvement in the Keystone XL evaluation. Tell John Kerry: Remove oil-industry flack Energy Resources Management from the Keystone XL process, and tell the president to reject this project once and for all! Click here to automatically sign the petition. ERM's draft environmental analysis of Keystone XL, released in March, was pretty much what you would expect from a company that is a member of the Western Energy Alliance, the American Fuel and Petrochemical Manufacturers, the Louisiana Mid-Continent Oil and Gas Association, the American Petroleum Institute, AND has two top staffers on the board of the Western States Petroleum Association. (The American Petroleum Institute alone has spent $16 million lobbying on behalf of Keystone XL.2) The State Department's ability to vet ERM for conflicts was already deeply in question, after staffers at the agency hid the fact that ERM has worked for pipeline builder TransCanada on at least two major projects in the past.3 But now it turns out that ERM is a member of as many pro-pipeline oil-industry groups as Secretary of State John Kerry has fingers on the hand he must be holding over his eyes when confronted again and again with the unacceptable conflicts of interest at ERM. When we got Dick Cheney out of the White House, we thought our new leaders would stop letting the oil-industry write our energy future. And it's clearer every day to the American people that we simply cannot afford to continue to do so. We expect better of President Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry. The president was right to set a climate test for approval of Keystone XL, but as long as his administration is allowing conflicted oil-industry shills like ERM to crunch the numbers, the results will remain a foregone conclusion in favor of a superheated planet. Tell John Kerry: Remove oil-industry flack Energy Resources Management from the Keystone XL process, and tell the president to reject this project once and for all! Click here to automatically sign the petition. Thanks for fighting Keystone XL Elijah Zarlin, Campaign Manager
CREDO Action from Working Assets Automatically add your name: Learn more about this campaign - "Keystone contractor's ties to energy groups draw new scrutiny," Politico, 12/17/13
- "Keystone contractor gives us 5 more reasons they have a conflict of interest," Daily Kos, 12/18/13
- "EXCLUSIVE: State Dept. Hid Contractor's Ties to Keystone XL Pipeline Company," Mother Jones, 3/21/13
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