Environmentalists in the US object to oil taken from tar sands which will be transported across the US by pipe to ports in Texas and Louisiana.  They have so to speak drawn a line in the sand, Canada’s sand.

The US State Department has tried to help promote the pipeline in a clear effort to make nice to Canada.

Environmental studies show the impact of the pipeline in the US will be negligible.

Now we hear from the Globe and Mail in Toronto:  “If tehre were ever a major energy project that Canada’s economy needed, and needed to work wel it is the Energy East pipeline proposal from TransCanada Corp.  If  it ..lives up to its biling, the pipeline would demonstrate to skeptics the viability of transporting bitumen from Alberta’s oil sands via pipeline, essen the oil industry’s growing dependence on rail, open up new markets for Canadian crude overseas and….(create) a deep-water terminal. Alberta;s il industry is one of this country’s major economic drivers; the capacity to extract oil is there, more is being buit, and that oil has to move somehow.”