Early last Thursday morning, most people did not know that Secretary of State Rex Tillerson’s former employer ExxonMobil could stand to benefit from the construction of the Keystone XL pipeline, therefore making Tillerson’s participation in the permit approval an ethical and possible financial conflict of interest. By Thursday evening, not only has that conflict of interest been laid to bare in national and global headlines, Tillerson’s State Department announced publicly for the first time that he had officially recused himself from the Keystone XL decision under the watchful eyes of the Office of Government Ethics.
How did this happen in the span of one news cycle? Thousands of people who are fed up with Trump’s cabinet of billionaire and corporate executives flooded the phone lines of federal ethics watchdog the Office of Government Ethics.
Rec'd lots of calls today. @StateDept indicates Sec. Tillerson recused from issues related to pipeline application: https://t.co/2n6wEbgdBJ
— U.S. OGE (@OfficeGovEthics) March 9, 2017
Now, the Office of Government Ethics may sound real nerdy, but let’s face it. The resistance has so far included rogue National Parks Twitter accounts, scientists copying climate data, and the writers of Teen Vogue — oh, and some badass climbers hanging a ‘RESIST’ banner near the White House.
This all started when Greenpeace realized the conflict of interest involved if Tillerson participated in the Keystone XL permit decision, about which the State Department has until March 27 to make a decision. Tillerson’s most recent employer, ExxonMobil, is heavily invested in tar sands production that would be served by the pipeline. Approval of Keystone XL would increase the value of tar sands oil sold on global markets, and hence the value of ExxonMobil’s tar sands assets.
As such, ExxonMobil stands to materially benefit from the approval of the pipeline granted by its former CEO Tillerson.
Last Wednesday morning, Greenpeace’s Executive Director Annie Leonard sent a letter to the OGE stating that “given OGE’s focus on prevention and their praise of Tillerson’s ethics commitments, the time is ripe for OGE to clarify exactly what those commitments mean in one of their first real tests and first real decisions Tillerson may take relating to his former employer.”
Around lunchtime on Thursday, thousands of people started calling the OGE, tying up their phone lines and sending a clear message that they were not going to put up with Exxon making decisions at the State Department. An online petition was also making the rounds on social media.
By around 6pm eastern time, the Office of Government Ethics responded with assurance from the State Department that Rex Tillerson would, in fact, recuse himself from “working on issues related to TransCanada’s application for a presidential permit for the proposed Keystone XL pipeline.”
The office claimed he had made that decision in February, but this was clearly not just news to us, but to reporters at nearly every major news outlet.
Tillerson recused himself from working on the Keystone XL pipeline. #energynerdsiren https://t.co/DW9YK29RDJ
— Elana Schor (@eschor) March 9, 2017
.@StateDept says Rex Tillerson has recused himself from #KeystoneXL process https://t.co/oTUujo6dEj
— Timothy Cama (@Timothy_Cama) March 9, 2017
Tillerson has recused himself from Keystone pipeline issues: State Dept. https://t.co/DT1Sec7URJ pic.twitter.com/ojaCq5FoXA
— Reuters Top News (@Reuters) March 10, 2017
Greenpeace isn’t quite finished with the Office of Government Ethics. We’re also requesting that the agency make public any information relevant to this decision, including any information about recusals, waivers requested or sought, and further ethics disclosures.
You can send a message right now asking the OGE for more transparency around not just this decision, but future ones involving conflicts of interest.
Since Trump’s cabinet is a walking conflict of interest, we will have to keep up with tactics like this to drag these violations into the spotlight and hold individuals accountable with the help of people willing to do whatever it takes, agencies and institutions whose job it is to keep government ethical, and allies in the media who can help tell the story around the world.
