State Department sued over Keystone pipeline communications http://michiganmessenger.com/49104/state-dept-sued-over-keystone-pipeline-communications

A coalition of environmental groups filed a lawsuit against the US State Department Wednesday after the agency refused to turn over communications between Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and a former campaign manager who is now chief lobbyist for the oil firm TransCanada. TransCanada, which owns the proposed Keystone XL pipeline now awaiting Clinton’s approval, hired Paul Elliott, deputy director of her 2008 presidential campaign, as their DC lobbyist.

The environmentalists sought any communications between Clinton and Elliott, but that request was denied. Friends of the Earth says this “calls into question the agency’s decision to rush the review of the Keystone XL pipeline.” The proposed pipeline would pump corrosive tar sands oil from Canada’s Boreal forest to the Gulf Coast. Environmental campaigners say the pipeline would pump this oil across the most sensitive part of the Ogallala Aquifer, one of America’s most important sources of fresh water