Peter Moskovitz writes;  As many people here see it, the keys to unlocking Montana’s full economic potential are just 40 miles beyond the state’s eastern border, out of the reach of even Montana’s most powerful politicians.

There, in a dirt field in Gascoyne, North Dakota, sit hundreds of segments of 36-inch-wide pipe, each painted pale green to prevent rust and stamped with the letters “KXL.’’

For many Montanans, the pipes represent a slap in the face from the federal government, which for six years has labored over whether to allow Canadian pipeline giant TransCanada to build the Keystone XL.  The pipeline would bring up to 850,000 barrels of oil from Alberta’s tar sands through Montana, South Dakota and Nebraska, to an existing pipeline system stretching from Kansas to oil refineries on the Gulf Coast.

The Keystone has run into opposition from dozens of environmental groups across the U.S., with activists arguing that the pipeline is an environmental catastrophe waiting to happen. Those concerns have shaken up politics in South Dakota and Nebraska. But in Montana, a state keenly aware of the benefits of a booming energy industry, the fight over the pipeline is virtually nonexistent. A few local environmental groups have protested it, but in political races, at school board meetings and in local bars, the debate seems to be settled.

Baker, a city a few miles from the North Dakota border, home to a little less than 2,000 residents, makes clear why: It’s bustling thanks to the ancillary effects of the oil industry, mainly drilling in eastern Montana and western North Dakota. Hotels are full, real estate prices are high, and the population is slowly growing. Two interstate pipelines already pass through the town. For many here, the idea that another pipeline would cause controversy is confounding.

Many think Montana’s support for the pipeline has to do with the state’s already robust energy industry.  Energy infrastructure can be seen even through the most desolate sections of the state. Mile-long freight trains carrying tons of coal from Montana’s Powder River Basin crawl from east to west. Oil rigs in the hills of eastern Montana tap into the same Bakken formation that made North Dakota an American energy success story.