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the southern portion of a pipeline -- the Gulf Coast Project -- that will eventually meet up with the larger Keystone XL pipeline that will run from Alberta, Canada, to the Gulf Coast. The pipeline is primarily designed to transport crude oil from Canada's tar sands region to refineries in Texas. When it's complete, it will be able to move 1.4 million barrels of crude oil a day.
• From the start, though, the project has attracted fierce opposition from environmental groups, and the larger plan was eventually rejected by President Barack Obama who asked TransCanada to reroute the northern portion to avoid sensitive areas of Nebraska. In the meantime, to relieve a bottleneck at a refinery in Cushing, Okla., Obama encouraged TransCanada to separately move ahead with the segment leading from the Midwest to the Gulf Coast.

• TransCanada spokesman Terry Cunha said that is why the company withdrew the initial application that drew the EPA's ire. The decision to drill under the wetlands and in some cases move the pipeline a few feet "to protect a farm house or a grain bin" were done to meet the requirements of the Army Corps of Engineers.
• TransCanada believes it will have its permits in place to begin constructing the southern portion of the pipeline this summer, Cunha said.

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