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Letter To Barack Obama 13-05-03 Conflicts of Interest
Letter To Barack Obama 13-05-03 Conflicts of Interest
Grandt
President Barack Obama The White House 1600 Pennsylvania Ave NW Washington, D.C. 20500 Re: Keystone XL conflicts of interest Dear President Obama, Beware! You have a serious problem! And you have only one viable course of action. You must deny the Keystone XL permit application and denounce all conflicts of interest. The following report reveals connections that are despicable -- you cannot recuse yourself. You must rise above connections that are dissected below -- laid open for all to examine.
Obama's Former Communications Director's Firm Does PR For Keystone XL Pipeline, Tar Sands Rail Transport
Steve Horn May 3, 2013 DeSmogBlog.com Double-dipping is a "no go" in the real world of eating chips and salsa with a circle of friends but an everyday reality in the world of lobbyists and PR professionals. Enter double-dipper Anita Dunn, former White House Communications Director for President Barack Obama who now runs the firm SKDKnickerbocker (Squier Knapp Dunn), a firm that "brings unparalleled strategic communications experience to Fortune 500 companies, political groups and candidates, non-profits, and labor organizations." Dip one: TransCanada Corporation, which SKDK does public relations work for, as revealed in an Oct. 2012 New York Times investigation. TransCanada is the multinational corporation currently building the contentious southern half of the Keystone XL (KXL) tar sands pipeline, following the dictates of a March 2012 Obama Administration Executive Order. Within months, the fate of the border-crossing Alberta to Port Arthur, TX KXL export pipeline will also likely be decided by the U.S. State Department.
Keystone XL: Dunn's Obama/Kerry Connections Portend a Dunn and Done Scenario
Dunn has maximized her White House insider access status since leaving the Administration in 2009 and starting SKDK. "Dunn regularly attends closed-door political strategy briefings with top Obama aides; White House records show she has visited more than 100 times since leaving her communications job," the Oct. 2012 New York Times piece explained. "She is now serving as a paid adviser to the Democratic National Committee." Dunn's husband Robert "Bob" Bauer also maintains extremely close ties to the Obama Administration, serving as Obama's personal and political attorney. "Bauer also will play that role for Obamas new political network, Organizing for America, and the Democratic National Committee, which is administering the network," explained a Feb. 2009 article in Politico, "Bauer's new, unmatched legal power." In Nov. 2009, Obama named Bauer White House Counsel, a job he left in June 2011 to return to his private practice at Perkins Coie, "focusing on serving as general counsel to the Presidents reelection campaign, general counsel to the Democratic National Committee and personal lawyer to President Obama," according to the Perkins Coie website. SKDK's Bill Knapp, described by the New York Observer's Ben Smith (now Editor-in-Chief of BuzzFeed) as "one of the Democratic Partys most sought-after operatives" helped develop the media strategy and advertising" for Kerry for President 2004 that culminated with a defeat to George W. Bush, while Bauer worked as legal Counsel for Kerry's campaign. Furthermore, Dunn served as Communications Director from 1987-1990 for then-U.S. Sen. Kerry. The Kerry-lead State Department has the final say on whether the KXL north proposal becomes a reality. As icing on the cake, numerous TransCanada lobbyists have passed through the governmentindustry revolving door, entering both executive-level agencies and President Obama's innercircle.
If KXL Fails, There's Always Rail, Barge, Increased Pipeline Capacity Supplements
Dunn's firm will cash in with or without KXL due to its client relationship with AAR. Even without KXL - or for that matter even with it - massive amounts of tar sands dilbit are already transported to market by freight rail, a midstream market brought to the public's attention after the March 2013 Canadian Pacific Rail spill of 30,000 gallons of tar sands bitumen in Minnesota. Canadian Pacific is also an AAR dues-paying member.
In its Aug. 2011 Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement (SEIS), the State Department said that rail currently has the capacity to transport over 1 million barrels of tar sands per day to market. "Even in a situation where there was a total freeze in pipeline capacity for 20 years, it appears that there is sufficient capacity on existing rail tracks to accommodate shipping...through at least 2030," the SEIS explained. "[S]tatistics from the Department of Transportation, ... conservatively estimated that the existing cross-border rail lines from Canada to the U.S. could accommodate crude oil train shipments of over 1,000,000 bpd (barrels per day)." As a case in point, BNSF is eager to see KXL fail, seeing it as an economic opportunity of epic proportions for its rails.
You must understand that people of conscience expect you to deny the Keystone XL permit. Reduce the carbon infrastructure and damage it continues to cause. Expanding fossil fuel infrastructure is just plain wrong. Lets leave the tarsands in the ground. Abandon Keystone XL. For humanity!