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Alberta’s regulatory overhaul under fire
Gary Park For Petroleum News
The Alberta government has done what no administration in more than 36 years of Conservative party rule has managed — generated a groundswell of opposition from its heartland.
Landowners are among the most vociferous opponents of the government’s legislation to divide the Alberta Energy and Utilities Board into two agencies, ending an unhappy 12 years of trying to make a single regulator work.
Bill 46 is scheduled to become law this month and take effect on Jan. 1.
It will revive the Energy Resources Conservation Board to oversee the development of oil, natural gas and coal and create an Alberta Utilities Commission to control the distribution of natural gas and electricity in the best interests of consumers.
The level of public trust in Alberta’s energy regulator was already at its lowest ebb in memory when it was discovered this year that the AEUB had hired private detectives to track power-line opponents.
The government added to that firestorm by, in the words of its critics, “trampling on the rights and freedoms” of Albertans.
The initial draft of Bill 46 gave the AUC the right to make decisions without giving notice or holding a hearing, preventing landowners from making oral submissions or being represented by an attorney, and cutting off funding to interveners.
Public meeting, rally The response has included a public meeting attended by 350 people — “many of them angry,” according to one observer — and a rally at the legislature.
The core of the opposition was also the core rural supporters who got Ed Stelmach elected as Alberta premier a year ago.
But the ranks of critics covered an even wider spectrum.
Calgary Mayor Dave Bronconnier urged the government to suspend Bill 46 “pending full public consultation,” arguing the legislation would create a “highly centralized organization where individual parties will have no direct financial resources that they can utilize to represent their own interests.”
Environmentalists and consumer groups joined the chorus of outrage, forcing the government to bend.
While insisting the objective was to speed up the decision-making process at a time when the AEUB is handling 60,000 applications a year, Stelmach said he wanted to find a balance between government intentions and public concerns.
Some amendments made Some amendments were made, notably to preserve funding for interveners to make submissions at regulatory hearings or proceedings.
Energy Minister Mel Knight also insisted Bill 46 is designed to give regulators the chance to issue orders without notice only in extreme circumstances, such as when power lines are down in a storm.
Otherwise he said new projects would not be allowed to proceed without due regulatory process.
Beyond that the government is sticking with its Jan. 1 implementation date.
But that was not sufficient to appease the political opposition. New Democratic Party leader Brian Mason said that, regardless of the changes, the legislation will shut out “legitimate interveners from hearings.”
Liberal Party energy spokesman Hugh MacDonald said that if the bill “were a car, it would be a clunker and all the repair work by (Knight) won’t make it roadworthy.”
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