Team Obama supports Canada’s oil sands?

CALGARY (Reuters) — Canada’s top energy producers association cheered the Obama administration on Tuesday for signaling support for Alberta’s oil sands, a growing source of crude supply to the United States that is widely criticized by environmental groups for contributing to global warming.
The Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers said U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu’s comments to the Reuters Global Energy Summit this week showed the administration understood the national security benefits of importing oil from its northern neighbor.
“As we read that, we found his comments very, very positive, explicitly, or maybe more implicitly, in talking about all the advantages of doing business with Canada,” said Tom Huffaker, CAPP’s vice-president of environment and policy.
Environmental groups such as Greenpeace and the Natural Resources Defense Council have mounted major campaigns to get the message out to Americans that the expansion of Canada’s oil sands industry threatens to intensify global warming, deforestation and damage to water resources.