The Obama administration stopped fighting a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request Friday and released documents showing that NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies Chief James Hansen was paid $250 an hour by a Canadian law firm for advice and testimony against developing Alberta’s oil sands, income which Hansen does not appear to have disclosed.
Hansen was arrested outside the White House once this August, and again Sunday, while protesting the Keystone XL pipeline, which will carry Alberta’s oil south to the United States.
American Tradition Institute director of litigation Chris Horner first filed a FOIA request with NASA for records pertaining to Hansen’s outside employment back in February, but the Obama administration fought the request. Up until last week, the Obama administration continued to fight the FOIA, even litigating the matter in court. Then, all of a sudden last Friday, the Justice Department sent Horner the documents he had requested.
A January 20, 2009 document shows that the Canadian law firm Ackroyd LLP retained Hansen to prepare a report “regarding the anticipated greenhouse gas emissions from the Joslyn Oil Sand Mine.” Ackroyd is representing the Oil Sand Environmental Coalition (OSEC), a group fighting to stop oil sand development.
The $250 hourly rate is established by local Canadian rules on the basis of years of experience of a witness. Judging from the rate, Ackroyd priced Hansen’s services as an expert dating all the way back to his 1988 U.S. Senate testimony first introducing global warming as a policy issue in Washington, DC.
It is still unclear how much money Hansen received from Ackroyd since his 2010 financial disclosure form did not list them as a source of income. Neither does his 2009 form. There is also no record of his disclosing any travel expenses related to his 2010 oil sands testimony in Canada.
The Keystone XL pipeline has become a political headache for the Obama administration. At a time when Obama is demonizing corporations for sitting on profits, and is pushing for infrastructure that will create construction jobs, the Keystone XL project would have injected $7 billion in infrastructure spending into the economy.
Unions like the AFL-CIO are firmly in favor of the project, while environmental activists like Hansen, Friends of the Earth, and the Natural Resources Defense Council are against it.
Since the pipeline crosses the United States border with Canada, the State Department must produce an Environmental Impact Statement certifying that reasonable alternatives to the project were considered. The State Department has issued two such reports so far, but the Environmental Protection Agency has objected to both.
Obama told a Nebraska TV station last week that he will personally make the final call on the project.
