Oil - Pipelines

It's naive to think that reducing carbon emissions is costless, writes Thomas Walkom.

The latest pipeline faceoff between Alberta and British Columbia is more than a constitutional tussle.

It is also a reminder of the unresolved contradictions within Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s climate-change policy.

More specifically, it is a reminder that the core of that policy — the assertion that carbon emissions can be adequately reduced without significant economic cost — is simply not true.

The cosmos must be messing with Justin Trudeau and Rachel Notley. Just as the Kinder Morgan pipeline controversy surges to fever pitch over oil spill impacts, a barge near Vancouver has sunk, spilling diesel into the ocean in the territory of the Squamish Nation.

Media reports about threatened trade wars between B.C. and Alberta and commentary on the role of Justin Trudeau's government will now be accompanied by pictures of containment booms, spill responders and affected First Nations.

January 29, 2018

“Regardless of your views on this particular pipeline (we are opposed, in case that wasn’t clear), anyone who thinks their locally-elected government or local First Nations shouldn’t get railroaded by a US corporation just because they have a federal approval should be very concerned about these recent developments.”

January 30, 2018

VANCOUVER, BC, Coast Salish Territories – West Coast Environmental Law applauds a new provincial plan announced today to restrict the transportation of diluted bitumen in BC unless the science shows that spills can safely be cleaned up. A proposed regulation limiting increased bitumen shipments by pipeline or rail is a welcome safety measure for the environment and public health, say the environmental lawyers, and an important warning for Kinder Morgan if it continues to pursue its Trans Mountain pipeline and tankers project.

The B.C. government has introduced new oil spill regulations that include restrictions on transportation until "the behaviour of spilled bitumen can be better understood."

The measures announced Tuesday could complicate Texas-based energy giant Kinder Morgan's plan to expand its Trans Mountain oil pipeline from Alberta to the B.C. coast.

January 25, 2018

It's an oil spill the size of Paris. But only now is the world's attention catching up with the vast scale of the disaster in the East China Sea — the largest tanker spill in decades.

The crash itself happened weeks ago when an Iranian tanker called the Sanchi collided with a Chinese freighter on January 6 and burst into flames, later sinking. Thirty-two crew members are presumed dead.

The Trudeau government approved the Kinder Morgan oil pipeline expansion project after being told in a series of memos that First Nations believed its "paternalistic" approach to consultations was both "unrealistic" and "inadequate," reveal newly-released records obtained by National Observer.