SAN FRANCISCO, May 20 (UPI) -- Environmentalist suing the U.S. secretary of state claim there is a conflict of interest with the Keystone pipeline to ship Canadian oil sands to U.S. refiners.
The groups Friends of Earth, the Center for International Environmental Law and Corporate Ethics International filed a suit in a San Francisco court under the Freedom of Information Act. They want documents related to U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's communications with Paul Elliott, a former campaign manager for her 2008 presidential bid and now lobbyist for TransCanada, the corporate entity behind the Keystone pipeline.
The groups claim the State Department is dragging its feet on releasing records related to Clinton's relationship with Elliot.
"Why is the State Department refusing to release these communications?" Erich Pica, president of Friends of the Earth, asked in a statement. "This calls into question the agency's decision to rush the review of the Keystone XL pipeline, despite its massive environmental risks and bipartisan opposition to it."
The groups claim the link between Clinton and the oil industry suggests a conflict of interest in a State Department review of TransCanada's Keystone oil pipeline, which could stretch from Canada to Texas.
The State Department has said it "is not, and will not, be influenced by prior relationships that current government officials have had."
Friends of the Earth also accused Clinton of bias in November when she told an audience in San Francisco U.S. consumers were "either going to be dependent on dirty oil from the (Persian) Gulf or dirty oil from Canada."
