Johnson, Broderick

ERM spokesman Simon Garcia directed all questions to the State Department. TransCanada spokesman Grady Semmens said that although the company paid for ERM's analysis (as is common practice), TransCanada did not control what State and ERM released to the public. "The Department of State was responsible for posting the conflict of interest statements and has complete control over all activities of ERM," Semmons wrote in an email. "TransCanada does not direct or control ERM's actions in any way. TransCanada does not speak for the State Department with respect to the details of how it manages its review process."

After a half-dozen inquiries, a State Department official emailed this statement: "Some information in the administrative documents that was required for State Department conflict of interest procedures has been redacted. This redaction protects the private information of ERM's previous clients." Asked who exactly made the redactions, the official said: "On background, I don't know."

The State Department appears to be responsible for the attempt to mask the ERM-TransCanada connection. When State first posted the redacted ERM filing, it was possible to digitally remove the redaction and read the ERM bios. But some days later, a new version of the filing was posted online in which the ERM bios had been scrubbed from beneath the redactions.

The State Department has faced heaps of criticism for potential conflicts of interests involving TransCanada and Keystone XL. In October 2011, Obama's reelection campaign <a href="http://www.motherjones.com/blue-marble/2011/10/team-obama-hires-transcanada-lobbyist" style=" line-height: 24px;">hired</a> Broderick Johnson, who had previously lobbied in favor of Keystone, as a senior adviser. Emails obtained by Friends of the Earth, an environmental group that opposes the Keystone pipeline, <a href="http://www.motherjones.com/blue-marble/2011/10/emails-state-department-transcanada-elliot">revealed a cozy relationship</a> between TransCanada lobbyist Paul Elliott and Marja Verloop, an official at the US Embassy in Canada whose portfolio covers the Keystone project. Before he lobbied for TransCanada, Elliott <a href="http://www.motherjones.com/blue-marble/2011/09/revolving-door-keystone-xl-edition">worked as deputy campaign manager</a> on Hillary Clinton's 2008 presidential bid. Clinton served as secretary of state until recently.

The State Department's inspector general disagreed with critics who cried foul over these apparent conflicts of interest. In February 2012, the IG <a href="http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0212/72675.html" target="_blank">found no evidence of bias</a> in State's handling of the application to build the pipeline.  mojo