According to "The New York Times", legal experts questioned whether the U.S. government was "flouting the intent" of the Federal National Environmental Policy Act, which "meant to ensure an impartial environmental analysis of major projects". The report prompted 14 senators and congressmen to ask the State Department inspector general on October 26, 2011 "to investigate whether conflicts of interest tainted the process" for reviewing environmental impact. In August 2014, a study was published that concluded the pipeline could produce up to 4 times more global warming pollution than the State Department's study indicated. The report blamed the discrepancy on a failure to take account of the increase in consumption due to the drop in the price of oil that would be spurred by the pipeline.