Oil and Gas Cap to Proceed While Feds Respond to Supreme Court IAA Ruling
The Trudeau government is assigning a new cabinet working group on regulatory efficiency, chaired by Labour and Seniors Minister Seamus O’Regan, to look at possible changes to the country’s environmental assessment process in the wake of last Friday’s Supreme Court decision on the federal Impact Assessment Act.
The court ruling “has prompted a rethink by the government on how to best manage the regulatory process for major projects, namely energy and mining developments,” iPolitics reports. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has “made it clear that the working group is focused on getting ‘big projects built,’ with a focus on slashing red tape and making the regulatory process more efficient,” the news story adds, citing an unnamed government source.
Working group members include Environment and Climate Minister Steven Guilbeault, Natural Resources Minister Jonathan Wilkinson, Finance Minister and Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland, and Industry Minister François-Philippe Champagne, among others, iPolitics says.
Meanwhile, the government will press ahead with its forthcoming cap on oil and gas emissions and Clean Electricity Regulations, the Globe and Mail says. “The opinion of the court does not call into question other regulatory initiatives under development, and we are confident that they are within the purview of the federal government,” Guilbeault told the paper in a statement. Read more https://www.theenergymix.com/2023/10/17/breaking-impact-assessment-act-breaches-provincial-jurisdiction-supreme-court-rules/ www.theenergymix.com/2023/10/1…
#ImpactAssessmentAct #ucp #SurpremeCourt #environment #emissions #abpoli #cdnpoli
Suncor Boss Doubles Down on Oil’s Future, Ducks MP’s Questions on Fossil Liability
Kruger’s committee appearance began just half an hour after two environment groups warned that the expansion plan for Suncor’s Fort Hills oil sands mine in northern Alberta will produce an estimated 732 million cubic metres of new tailings waste over the project’s lifetime, enough to fill 60 square kilometres of new tailings ponds. That’s “an area large enough to cover the island of Manhattan,” the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society-Northern Alberta and the Alberta Wilderness Association said in a release.
“If this project moves forward, we will be forced to watch the destruction of a place that took 10,000 years to develop and only a few years to destroy,” said Gillian Chow-Fraser, boreal program manager at CPAWS-NA. “The company plans to destroy an ancient wetland and fill it with tailings ponds, not only losing important habitat and stored carbon but also replacing it with even more dangerous hazards to communities, wildlife and water.”
“Recent incidents, such as the leak and spill at Imperial’s Kearl mine, show that the tailings situation has reached a crisis point in Alberta,” added AWA conservation specialist Phillip Meintzer. “New and expanded oil sands mines mean the destruction of more wildlife habitat, while also adding more tailings to the landscape. The risk of environmental catastrophe is already too great.” Read more https://www.theenergymix.com/2023/10/17/suncor-boss-doubles-down-on-new-direction-ducks-mps-questions-on-fossil-liability/ www.theenergymix.com/2023/10/1…
#tarsands #oilsands #suncor #abpoli #liability #ClimateChange