In January the Supreme Court of Canada handed down a ruling on the Redwater case, overturning earlier decisions that said the Alberta Environmental Regulator (AER) couldn’t seize assets of bankrupt companies to pay for environmental cleanup. Because our regulatory system has allowed for it, a disturbing pattern has emerged whereby extraction companies rack up huge debts, file for bankruptcy, sell their assets to the creditors, and shed any responsibility for the environmental wreckage they leave behind. January’s ruling will help break this cycle, but still leaves us with a broken regulatory system that has no way to recoup many of these environmental liabilities. Companies’ assets at bankruptcy are often not enough to cover the full costs of cleanup for their projects.