Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, the former CEO of the oil and gas giant ExxonMobil, has recused himself from discussions of the permitting application for the Keystone XL pipeline, the State Department said Thursday in a letter to the environmental group Greenpeace. A State Department deputy legal adviser said in the letter that Tillerson made the decision in early February that he would not work "on issues related to TransCanada's application for a presidential permit" for the proposed pipeline, which the Obama administration halted but President Trump has revived. The letter was sent in response to one Greenpeace sent on Wednesday saying that Tillerson should recuse himself because his former company stood to benefit from the pipeline.
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