Xinhua/Yin Bogu via Getty Images(WASHINGTON) — Secretary of State Rex Tillerson has made the decision to recuse himself from any decisions made regarding the Keystone XL pipeline.
In a letter sent to the environmental group Greenpeace on Thursday by a State Department deputy legal advisor, the department says Tillerson made the decision to recuse himself last month from “working on issues related to TransCanada’s application for a presidential permit for the proposed Keystone XL pipeline.”
Greenpeace had sent a letter on Wednesday urging Tillerson to recuse himself, given that Exxon — a company Tillerson was CEO of prior to becoming secretary of state — would benefit from the pipeline’s construction.
On Thursday, Greenpeace responded to the news of Tillerson’s recusal in a statement, saying that his recusal “might have never been transparent to the public without people flooding the lines of the Office of Government Ethics today.”
“We must keep pushing this administration into the spotlight and demanding that ethics watchdogs hold these individuals accountable and make these decision regarding rampant conflicts of interest transparent,” the statement added.
Tillerson has to fully divest from Exxon by May as part of an agreement with the Office of Government Ethics. It is not clear whether he has done so yet.
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