Canada, no haven for pipeline work, mulls freeze-out

Environmental assessment can—dare a humble scribe say it?—go overboard.

To be sure, the process is good and necessary. Business must be done and projects must be executed responsibly—meaning, at a minimum, without fouling nature or threatening health.

Environmental assessment enforces essential standards. It makes competitors follow consistent rules.

Too often, though, it serves as a weapon of environmentalist obstruction.

The Canadian government is considering legislation that would turn environmental assessment into an endless legal gauntlet for energy projects.

A Senate committee began hearings on Bill C-69 on Feb. 6. Although the measure’s fate lies in the House of Commons, the Senate hearings might usefully flag problems.

Bill C-69 replaces the National Energy Board, which now governs pipelines, with a new Canadian Energy Regulator and creates the Impact Assessment Agency.

It thus addresses allegations by the governing Liberal Party that the NEB had lost the confidence of Canadians. It’s the final legislative commitment of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau before general elections due this spring.

Regulatory reform can be constructive, of course. Parts of the C-69 reform probably are.

But the bill makes approval procedures more complex than they were before, allows the stretching of timelines, and seeks to broaden participation in forums for public comment.

For pipelines, it makes assessment parameters sweeping and nebulous.

In addition to values related to environment, safety, health, and rights of indigenous peoples, the bill calls for consideration of “the health, social, and economic effects, including with respect to the intersection of sex and gender with other identify factors.”

Another assessment factor: “the extent to which the effects of the pipeline hinder or contribute to the government of Canada’s ability to meet its environmental obligations and its commitments in respect of climate change.”

Bill C-69 thus offers pipeline opponents a grab bag of ways to challenge, delay, and kill projects.

Toward pipeline expansion, the official Canadian attitude already is frosty at best.

Enactment of Bill C-69, as currently written, would harden the freeze.

(From the subscription area of www.ogj.com, posted Feb. 8, 2019. To comment, join the Commentary channel at www.ogj.com/oilandgascommunity.)