After taking a hiatus during the 2012 U.S. election campaign, Natural Resources Minister Joe Oliver headed south of the border in March to Chicago and Houston, and in April to Washington where he met the new interior secretary, Sally Jewel, State Department under-secretary Robert Hormats and senior members of Congress. During his visit to the capital, Mr. Oliver excoriated former NASA scientist James Hansen for his “exaggerated rhetoric” about the perils of oil sands expansion. Mr. Oliver expects to return to Washington once the new energy secretary, Ernest Moniz, settles into his job.Peter Power/The Globe and Mail