Federal Environmental Reviewer Claimed Delaware Tar Sands Refinery Made Air Cleaner?

(NationofChange) Steve Horn reports ~ State Dept Keystone XL Environmental Reviewer Claimed Delaware Tar Sands Refinery Made Air Cleaner

A DeSmogBlog investigation reveals Environmental Resources Management, Inc. (ERM Group), the contractor that performed the environmental review for TransCanada's Keystone XL tar sands export pipeline, was also recently hired by a major Delaware City refinery to study air quality around the plant. 
This "study" was funded by the refinery itself, owned by Delaware City Refining Company; a wholly owned subsidiary of PBF Energy. Delaware City Refinery is the recipient of 180,000 barrels per day of fracked oil from North Dakota's Bakken Shale along with oil extracted from Alberta's tar sands - both referred to as the "holy grail" by the Refinery's owner at a Feb. 2013 meeting - which sojourn eastward via mile-long freight rail cars owned by Norfolk Southern.
Conducted in March 2013, the study concluded the "air quality [near the refinery] is as good as, and in some cases, better than samples taken during the 2011 study before the refinery restart," as explained on a flyer obtained by DeSmog promoting two public meetings hosted by ERM to discuss results. 
However, an independent air sample study detected the cancer-causing compound benzene far above levels set by the Environmental Protection Agency, as well as soot and sulfur dioxide, in an area one mile from the refinery.
ERM Group - a dues-paying member of American Petroleum Institute (API), which has spent over $22 million lobbying on tar sands and Keystone XL since its June 2008 proposal - said that because Alberta's tar sands will get to market with or without Keystone XL, the tube's northern half "is unlikely to have a substantial impact on the rate of [tar sands] development."

 Horn concludes ~

Many scientists have already weighed in both on the climate change and ecological impacts of tar sands production, as well as on the ecological impacts of the Keystone XL pipeline itself, coming to starkly different conclusions than ERM Group did on its State Department environmental review. Is more of the same in store for Keystone XL’s northern half? Will it become another Caspian Sea, Peru or Delaware City Refinery? We’ll find out in the coming months when Secretary of State John Kerry and President Barack Obama make the final decison on the controversial pipeline»s destiny.

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