To further add to the stew, some members of the ERM project team had previously worked with the corporation that would function as the pipeline operator – Calgary-based TransCanada. Does all this put any noses into the wind? If it doesn’t, it should.

The following questions scream for straight answers: Is the United States so lacking in environmental consultants we have to hire from Great Britain? Not at all. Our U.S.-based environmental consultants are very experienced in assessing pipeline construction/operation, and most of them are active both here and internationally.

That is, our U.S. consultants are more than qualified. This pipeline would begin in northeast Alberta’s bituminous sands deposits and would carry crude oil down to the Texas Gulf Coast. So, why a Canadian company to operate the pipeline section through the United States? Canada is a member of the Commonwealth and pledges allegiance to the British Crown. Also, as I pointed out, London-based ERM has previously worked with TransCanada.

Given these “links,” is it possible TransCanada influenced our State Department’s procurement process? Interestingly, our State Department’s own inspector general has reported the department’s contractor-selection protocols could stand improvement, especially regarding documentation of the bases on which contractors are selected.

Reading all this, I recalled the Obama administration hiring a subsidiary of a Canada-based firm to develop the disastrous Obamacare website. How, I have to ask, can this corruption-infested administration add jobs to the U.S. economy when it is so busily bolstering foreign economies at our expense?

Thomas Wright

Aztec