BISMARCK, N.D. (AP) – State regulators in North Dakota say they support a controversial pipeline that would carry tar sands oil from Canada to the Gulf of Mexico. TransCanada Corp.’s proposed 1,700-mile Keystone XL pipeline has drawn opposition from people who fear it will harm the environment. The U.S. State Department is considering whether to approve the project. Hearings are being held this week in the six states the pipeline route would cross. North Dakota is not one of them, but Montana is. North Dakota’s Industrial Commission says the pipeline could carry Williston Basin oil to downstream markets. The group also says in its letter to U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton that it’s important the pipeline “be constructed and operated in a manner that will protect the citizens of the United States.”

LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) – The Nebraska Business Forecast Council expects the state will have record farm income this year and continued employment growth.  In a report released Wednesday, the council says it expects job growth will slow this fall and early next year, but it should accelerate in the second half of 2012 and in 2013.  The 2011 farm income is forecast to reach a record $5.4 billion. That’s 35 percent higher than last year. Eric Thompson directs the University of Nebraska-Lincoln Bureau of Business Research, which publishes the report. He says that “as long as the nation stays out of a recession, the state should be all right.”