About 400 oil tankers a year are expected to start traveling the waters shared by Washington state and British Columbia.
Prospects for a giant Canadian oil pipeline and export terminal just east of Vancouver, surged Tuesday with a second Canadian court ruling of 2020. The Federal Court of Appeals threw out a challenge by Aboriginal First Nations groups.
The decision follows by weeks a Supreme Court of Canada ruling that the British Columbia government cannot regulate or block the passage of bitumen crude oil from Alberta.
Gov. Jay Inslee and British Columbia Premier John Horgan have opposed the pipeline, on grounds of potential danger to marine life and recreation in the Salish Sea.