As Salon noted earlier this month, following the release of the State Department’s Environmental Impact Statement, which greenlighted the controversial Keystone XL Pipeline, it emerged that the report’s authors were outside contractors with oil industry ties. The contractor that produced the bulk of the report was Environmental Resources Management, DeSmog Blog reported, which had ties to tar sands extraction companies. On Tuesday, DeSmog Blog's Steve Horn added yet another layer of discreditation to the Environmental Impact Statement -- namely that ERM has a terrible track record when it comes to greenlighting pipeline projects.

ERM also authored a report that argued that the 2002 BP Caspian pipeline was environmentally and economically sound -- as the firm has also determined with the Keystone XL project. Horn notes that the predictions about the Caspian pipeline were dramatically wrong -- the project failed to deliver on jobs and the pipeline has been the site of explosions and oil spills. Via DeSmog Blog:

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