Luckily they've decided to go ahead and build the portions that don't need federal approval anyway... The portion from Montana and North Dakota to the Gulf. That part's needed even without Canadian oil coming in because of all of the domestic oil production up there.

As for the Canadian oil, I imagine they're going to build a pipeline to British Columbia, for part of it, and send the rest over to Montana in trains. Given that Japan just announced they're not buying any more Iranian oil, Canada will have a ready made market in the pacific for it.

Maybe that is because he isn't ultimately blocking it. It was a political move to put a timeline on the decision and a political move to call the bluff however what is holding up the pipeline is the Nebraska State Legislature's decision to have the proposed pipeline rerouted because of the Ogallala Aquifer. The process of that rerouting approval will take until late this year at the earliest and probably into next year. All of this is still ongoing and the Pipeline Company has already stated that they will reapply.

As Kazrico stated segments of the old proposal will probably move ahead fairly soon since they do not require further federal approval and because the Pipeline company already has right-of-way on the land where those segments were proposed. I am fairly confident the remainder of pipeline will be approved next year regardless of election results if the rerouted segment has Nebraska state approval since the Obama Adminstration has approved two other oil sands pipeline projects.

Other than that don't kid yourselves. Building a pipeline to B.C. is not an alternative it is already undergoing the approval process in Canada and has been for a long time. Both routes are part of the Canadian/USG discussion to get Oil Sand production up to 5 million bbls/day and both routes provide a way to get the relatively expensive syncrude to Asian markets while we continue to import cheaper oil from the middle east. Not to mention the B.C. pipeline route also includes an inbound pipeline for Natural Gas since that is required for processing the syncrude.