In brief: Pipeline project to get federal review

SEATTLE – The State Department’s inspector general is opening a review to determine whether the department has complied with federal laws in evaluating the $7 billion Keystone XL oil pipeline project.

The review is a response to charges by pipeline opponents that builder TransCanada Corp. improperly influenced what is supposed to be an independent assessment of whether the 1,700-mile pipeline is in the national interest and meets U.S. environmental standards.

Critics in Congress and environmentalists have specifically raised questions about the State Department’s hiring of a contractor to help prepare the environmental impact statement for the project. That company, Cardno Entrix of Texas, had previous business connections with TransCanada.

The inquiry could also consider other issues raised by Keystone XL opponents – including whether oil transported through the pipeline would be used in the U.S. or exported; whether the State Department has considered the effect on climate change of shipping tar sands oil through the U.S.; and whether the oil industry is prepared to clean up a spill of the thick, corrosive oil the pipeline is designed to carry.

The Keystone XL project would carry oil extracted from tar sands in Alberta, Canada, and ordinary crude from Montana, North Dakota and Mexico to refineries in the Midwest and along the Texas Gulf Coast.

In a memo Monday, Deputy Inspector General Harold Geisel said the “special review” is a response to a letter last month from 15 members of Congress asking for an investigation.

Soldier accused of espionage attempt

ANCHORAGE, Alaska – The U.S. Army charged an Alaska-based soldier Monday with attempted espionage, saying he communicated and transmitted national defense information to someone he believed was a foreign intelligence agent.

According to the charges, 22-year-old Spc. William Colton Millay of Owensboro, Ky., intended to aid a foreign nation.

“Millay had access to the information through the course of his normal duties both stateside and on a previous deployment, and although the information was unclassified, Millay believed that it could be used to the advantage of a foreign nation,” according to a description of the charges released by Army officials.

Officials would not identify the country Millay believed the so-called agent represented or if their investigation involved a sting operation. Millay was assigned to a combat tour in Iraq from December 2009 to July 2010, and he served in Korea, according to information provided by the Army.

Millay, a military police officer, also is charged with communicating defense information, issuing false statements, failing to obey regulations and soliciting a fellow service member at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson in Anchorage to get classified material.

According to the charges, the false statements were made to Army counterintelligence officials about the information Millay disclosed to the person he believed was a foreign agent and the scope of his attempts at contact with foreign governments.

Lt. Col. Bill Coppernoll would not identify the time period involved.