Social Damage

Oil, gas firms step up lobbying effort aimed at Tory government

jessie — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 12:18:09 -0700

Oil, gas firms step up lobbying effort aimed at Tory government

Tim Naumetz, August 24, 2008, The Canadian Press -- The Canadian corporate giants dominating Alberta oil sands extraction and refining lobbied the federal government intensively this summer, federal records show.

The campaign began shortly after Liberal Leader Stéphane Dion unveiled his plan for $15-billion worth of new taxes on carbon emissions and continued through July.

Oil and gas lobbyists held several meetings with Industry Minister Jim Prentice and Natural Resources Minister Gary Lunn, one meeting with Environment Minister John Baird, and a string of meetings with top government officials including aides to Prime Minister Stephen Harper.

The Liberal tax plan, feared in Western Canada, was likely discussed, an industry source said.

But the lobbying also reflected industry concern over the Conservative government's plan to use the Criminal Code, under the authority of environmental protection law, to enforce its own greenhouse gas reduction plan, the source added.

Records show the companies that engaged in the lobbying were Shell Canada, Petro-Canada, Suncor, Imperial Oil, Chevron Canada, Encana Corp., ConocoPhillips and Nexen Inc.

Three major industry organizations – the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers, another group representing small producers and explorers, and a third representing firms that market and distribute petroleum products – also took part in the campaign.

During the same period, lobbyists for 14 other associations and companies with a stake in the Liberal plan, as well as the regulatory regime the Conservatives are planning, also met with ministers, bureaucrats and political assistants.

Among them were the Coal Association of Canada, the Canadian Electricity Association, Hydro-Quebec, Ontario Power Corp., Nova Scotia Power, the Canadian Gas Association and the Canadian Nuclear Association.

The oil sands companies held a total of 36 meetings with ministers and government officials. Four of the meetings reported by Chevron Canada appeared to involve offshore oil development in the Atlantic.
A major technology supply firm for the oil sands, Amec Americas, also reported one lobbying session.

Only seven environmental groups and associations reported lobbying activity, primarily with ministerial assistants and senior bureaucrats.

Officials speaking on behalf of several of the oil companies and petroleum organizations declined to disclose details of the talks.
One even objected to use of the word “lobbying” to describe the meetings.

The public reports require only one-word descriptions of the issues being discussed. Most of the July reports listed both energy and environment as the topics.

Pierre Alvarez, president of the oil and gas producers association, said the meeting his organization reported with Prentice and Lunn was a general overview of the industry, including supply forecasts, that took place in the company of the U.S. ambassador to Canada, David Wilkins.

A spokeswoman for Suncor Energy Ltd., one of the oldest and largest participants in the oil sands, said she was not given specific details to release by company officials.

“When we're speaking with the government, we're speaking about everything from environmental issue that affect our business to energy supply within Canada and abroad, as well as capital and jobs and economic impact,” said Shawn Davis, the media relations officer for Suncor.

“When you're asking did we speak about the oil sands, I think yes, we would definitely have been speaking about the oil sands and our business,” she said.

A spokesman for EnCana Corp., another oil sands company with extensive other energy interests, also was unable to disclose details.

“These kinds of meetings and exchanges happen all the time,” said media director Alan Boras.

All registered consultant lobbyists, as well as companies and organizations that use in-house lobbyists to put their case to the federal government, must file monthly reports of meetings with designated public office holders. July was the first month the new monitoring regime introduced by the Conservative government took effect.

A spokesman for Mr. Baird, who met a lobbyist with only one of the firms, Shell Canada, confirmed there was discussion of proposed regulations to enforce greenhouse gas emission limits under the Conservatives' so-called Turning the Corner plan.

“The agenda included domestic and international climate change policy, low-carbon fuels and biofuels,” Chris Day, Mr. Baird's press secretary, said in an e-mail.

He added: “The minister took their views into consideration. The government is proceeding with its Turning the Corner plan.”

The Tory plan has been criticized by environmentalists and the opposition parties, in part because its greenhouse gas reduction targets are far short of the 1997 Kyoto Accord. As well, critics say the industry will be able to avoid reductions by contributing to a so- called Green Technology Fund.

But industry resistance is currently focused on the fact that regulations limiting the emission of greenhouse gases will be enforced through the Canadian Environmental Protection Act under the federal government's criminal-law power — a necessity because the environment and natural resources are under constitutional jurisdiction of the provinces.

The C.D. Howe Institute, a conservative research and opinion group, published a legal analysis last week by constitutional expert Peter Hogg, an Osgoode Hall law professor in Toronto, predicting the Supreme Court of Canada would likely uphold the regulations.

The previous Liberal government added six greenhouse gases, including carbon dioxide, to a list of toxic substances in the Environmental Protection Act, giving the federal government a measure with which to enforce a national scheme to curb greenhouse gas emissions.

But the industry is concerned about using criminal sanctions to enforce the complicated system of measuring and attributing emissions.

The standoff is reminiscent of the battle that took place between the Liberal government in the 1990s and Harper's former party, Reform, over the use of Criminal Code sanctions in the Firearms Act to enforce requirements of the national firearms registry.

Green Party Leader Elizabeth May said contacts in the oil and gas industry have expressed concern about the cost of simply meeting the measurement and paperwork burden of the regulations. She reiterated the Green contention that the Tory plan will not significantly reduce greenhouse gases.

Despite the limited amount of information available in the lobbying files, NDP MP Pat Martin says the new reporting law is worthwhile because it reveals the extent of contacts between the oil industry and government on an issue that will likely be central in the next election.

“That's not lobbying, that's a blitzkrieg,” Mr. Martin said. “It's easy to see who's got the ear of this government.”

U.K. advertising watchdog forces Shell to pull newspaper ad

jessie — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 11:48:03 -0700

U.K. advertising watchdog forces Shell to pull newspaper ad

The Canadian Press, August 13, 2008 -- Royal Dutch Shell PLC violated industry rules by claiming in a newspaper ad that two oil projects in Canada and the United States involved sustainable forms of energy, Britain's advertising watchdog ruled Wednesday.

The Advertising Standards Authority investigated the Shell ad after a complaint from the World Wildlife Federation.

The advertisement focused on two of Shell's projects. One involves exploration in Canada's oil sands where bitumen, a tar-like form of petroleum, can be extracted and upgraded to synthetic crude oil. The ad also mentioned Shell's plan to build one of the United States' largest oil refineries in Texas.

"The challenge of the 21st century is to meet the growing need for energy in ways that are not only profitable but sustainable," said Shell's full-page ad in the Financial Times.

The watchdog ruled that Shell breached regulations relating to substantiation, truthfulness and that the advertisement "was defined primarily in environmental terms."

Shell argued that it also used "sustainable" to refer to the social and economic impact of the projects.

"It was never our intention to be misleading in our advertisement," said Sarah Smallhorn, a spokeswoman for Shell in London.

The authority also rejected Shell's argument that the design of the refinery at Port Arthur, Texas, would lower most types of emissions on a per barrel basis.

Citing a 2006 report by Canada's National Energy Board, the watchdog said the report claimed that the environmental impact of the country's oil sands projects were of major concern. Producing crude from bitumen can involve strip mining and generate more emissions than conventional crude.

"The ASA's decision to uphold WWF's complaint sends a strong signal to business and industry that greenwash is unacceptable," said David Norman, the World Wildlife Federation's director of UK campaigns.

Shell recently discontinued its sponsorship of one of Britain's most prestigious wildlife photography exhibitions after environmental group protests.

The move to withdraw from the Wildlife Photographer of the Year show at London's Natural History Museum came after repeated complaints from the WWF and Friends of the Earth. The groups maintain that Shell's sponsorship was inappropriate because of its track record on the environment.

Labour's plan for dealing with high energy prices; Working families hit by job losses as well as soaring food and fuel costs.

jessie — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 09:40:47 -0700

Labour's plan for dealing with high energy prices; Working families hit by job losses as well as soaring food and fuel costs.

Canadian Labour Congress, July 7, 2008, Straight Goods -- Higher oil and natural gas prices are here to stay. That may be a good thing in terms of helping us move to a more energy-efficient economy and averting catastrophic climate change. But we need a plan to safeguard jobs and the living standards of working families in the transition.

Rather than leave it all to the market, we need to take control of our national energy future and ensure that the costs of higher energy prices are fairly shared.

High prices for energy, especially gasoline, are clearly now having major negative impacts on the Canadian economy and on our jobs. We have already seen major layoff announcements in the auto sector as sales of SUVs and trucks slump and in the airlines sector as fares begin to soar. Truckers and others who can't easily pass on their costs are being pushed out of business.

Ordinary working families who mainly live from paycheck to paycheck will inevitably react to higher gas prices and utility bills by cutting into other areas of spending. The travel and hospitality industry already looks like it may be in big trouble this summer.

This big new hit to jobs is coming on top of job losses arising from a continued very high dollar, reduced exports to a US economy flirting with recession and growing competition from Asian imports. Unemployment is on the rise, from a low of 5.8 percent at the start of the year to 6.1 percent in June; private sector paid employment has stopped growing; and economic growth has ground to a halt, falling even below growth in the US.

Besides oil and gasoline prices, many basic food prices are also now soaring out of sight. Home heating costs will rise dramatically this coming winter due to higher fuel oil prices and fast-rising natural gas prices. These increased costs will hurt lower and middle-income families the most, for the simple reason that they spend more than the well off on the basics.

The fact that overall inflation is still quite low (2.2 percent in June) shows that the higher Canadian dollar is still cushioning us against global price movements and that it is difficult in a weak economy for businesses to pass on major input cost increases to consumers. Still, the Bank of Canada and other major central banks have stopped cutting interest rates. Instead of dealing with the economic slowdown and the credit crisis, they now seem quite prepared to see unemployment rise significantly so as to maintain low inflation.

Some blame speculation for higher oil and food prices. There is no doubt that the hedge funds have moved into commodity futures and derivative markets in a major way. Flows of funds in and out of derivatives markets are the major explanation of why oil prices can move so far, up and down — but mainly up — so dramatically in even a single day.

Dealing with speculation will require international regulation of commodity markets. Canada should be pushing other governments to act together before it is too late.

While speculation plays a role, the dramatic increase in the price of oil is still primarily driven by basic supply and demand factors. Demand from developing Asia has been growing fast (partly due to subsidies which cushion them from global prices), as has domestic demand within many major oil producing developing countries where prices are kept deliberately low. China has just significantly hiked domestic oil prices. But generally, most economists think that demand falls only slowly in response to higher prices. This has been the case in Canada, at least until very recently, because most energy use cannot be easily reduced in the short-term.

Meanwhile, world oil supplies do seem to be very tight. Even if we do not buy into the most pessimistic scenarios of 'peak oil', cheap conventional oil supply is running down quite rapidly, and it takes a long time to develop and bring to market non-conventional supplies such as oil from the tar sands, deep offshore wells, etc. In other words, high world oil prices are likely here to stay.

What could and should Canadian governments be doing to ease the impacts on jobs and on the living standards of working families? The Canadian Labour Congress proposes a seven-point action plan.

Rein in the global speculators
Governments must take a cue from the destructive collapse of the dot.com bubble in 2000 and the recent collapse of the US sub-prime housing bubble. They should restrict highly leveraged purchases of commodity futures by regulating hedge funds and other traders, or impose transaction taxes on short-term trades in commodity markets (following the model of the proposed Tobin tax on speculation in international currency markets). Short-term capital gains should also be taxed much more heavily than capital gains from longer-term holdings.

Maintain low interest rates
The impact of soaring energy prices on jobs and real wages is going to be worse if the Bank of Canada deliberately lets unemployment rise to forestall any threat of energy and food price driven inflation. With inflation excluding energy and food prices running at just 1.2 percent in June, there is, in fact, no evidence of energy-driven inflation to date.

Tax surplus oil company profits
Every dollar increase in the price of a barrel of oil delivers huge windfall profits to oil companies and their shareholders, since the cost per barrel of current production averaging perhaps $40 today is far below the current price. The operating profits of Canada's oil and gas industry in 2007 came in at $26 Billion, of which less than one quarter ($6 Billion) was paid to governments in corporate income tax. There is no good reason why governments should not tax away a significant share of these high profits, at least to the extent that incentives are still maintained for oil companies to invest in added production.

One way to raise energy sector corporate taxes would be to eliminate the deductibility of provincial resource royalties for federal corporate income tax purposes, as recently proposed by none other than the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). As the OECD further suggests, remaining tax breaks for the highly profitable oil industry should be removed. Both of these measures would boost federal corporate income tax revenues from the oil patch.

Redirect surplus oil company profits to protect low-income households against energy poverty
Higher taxes on the oil industry should be used to finance immediate increases in tax credits for households, tilted to lower and middle income families, to provide some cushion against higher prices. High prices would still give people a major incentive to reduce their energy consumption.

We should immediately increase the GST credit, the Working Income Tax Benefit and the Guaranteed Income Supplement for seniors to cushion very low-income households against rising gasoline and home heating costs.

Give people real and affordable energy alternatives
To reduce oil consumption, we need major new investments to expand the capacity of public transit systems, tied to "Made in Canada" procurement requirements. Existing transit systems can be expanded quite quickly by buying new vehicles, hiring new staff, expanding Park and Ride operations etc. Expansion of passenger rail will take longer but must begin.

Households (and owners of rental buildings) should be given interest free loans, repayable from lower utility bills, to immediately retrofit their houses and apartments for greater energy efficiency, including the purchase of high energy efficiency furnaces and other appliances as well as much higher standards of insulation. A major national program could reduce consumption quite quickly at modest cost and create many new jobs, offsetting the slowdown, which is just now beginning in the residential construction sector.

Governments should support development and production of highly energy efficient "Made in Canada" vehicles and appliances, so that adjustment to higher prices creates jobs.

Re-regulate oil and gas exports and increase domestic supply
We are maintaining and even increasing exports to the US of our remaining low cost, readily accessible conventional oil and natural gas resources, even as our known reserves are rapidly depleted. We should direct the National Energy Board to approve exports only if Canadian longer-term needs will be met, and re-establish the pipeline capacity needed to bring Western Canadian oil to central Canadian markets to reduce our dependence on imported oil.

All tar sands production should be upgraded and refined (or processed into petro-chemicals) in Canada so as to enhance national energy supplies and national energy security while also maximizing Canadian economic benefits from our resources.

Focus Climate Change policies on the large industrial emitters
The sharp run up in oil and gasoline prices and rising natural gas prices already amounts to a significant carbon tax on working households, even though almost all of the growth in greenhouse gas emissions has been driven by the oil industry and very affluent Canadians.

Rather than impose even higher energy prices on working families through a carbon tax, the immediate focus of our climate change policies should be to reduce the emissions of the "large final emitters", especially the energy intensive tar sands and coal-fired power plants. Regulations capping emissions must force investment in new technologies and revenues from selling emission permits should be directed to helping industry adjust and to cushioning lower income households against price increases. Further tar sands expansion should not take place unless the industry can reduce its total emissions by investing in carbon capture and storage.

The Canadian Labour Congress is the largest democratic and popular organization in Canada with over three million members. The Canadian Labour Congress brings together Canada's national and international unions, the provincial and territorial federations of labour and 130 district labour councils.

Enbridge delays Gulf Coast pipeline; Company blames lagging output in oil sands as it pushes back project to 2014

jessie — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 09:33:10 -0700

Enbridge delays Gulf Coast pipeline; Company blames lagging output in oil sands as it pushes back project to 2014

Norval Scott & Shawn McCarthy, July 10, 2008, Report on Business, CALGARY, OTTAWA -- Enbridge Inc. is pushing back plans to build a $2.6-billion pipeline that would connect the oil sands to refineries on the U.S. Gulf Coast, blaming the delay on the slow pace of development in Alberta.

While energy companies are bringing billions of dollars worth of new oil sands projects on stream, technological problems and regulatory delays mean the volumes of crude being produced aren't keeping up with companies' lofty expectations.

As a result, Enbridge now says there won't be enough oil by 2011 to supply its proposed 445,000 barrels-a-day Texas Access pipeline and is pushing the project's completion back to 2014.

Instead, Enbridge, which was developing Texas Access with Exxon Mobil Corp., is opting for a much cheaper solution: it will build out existing lines to connect the pipeline hub of Sarnia, Ont. to Portland, Me., by 2010, at a cost of only $350-million, and then ship the oil further south by sea.

"We've seen a slowdown in supply ... it relates to technological issues faced by upstream producers, and increased regulatory scrutiny," said Al Monaco, Enbridge executive vice-president of major projects, on the sidelines of the TD Newcrest Oil Sands Forum in Calgary.

The Sarnia-Maine solution "addresses the timing needs of producers and offers a good near-term solution to get [crude] to the market quickly," Mr. Monaco said.

Producers have been seeking to connect Alberta to the untapped Gulf Coast to broaden their base of refinery customers because Alberta's main market, the U.S. Midwest, is largely saturated with Canadian crude. Refiners in the Gulf Coast are keen to get a new source of supply amid mounting geopolitical concerns about Middle East oil, and concerns about declining supplies from Venezuela and Mexico.

But while oil sands production is rising substantially enough for producers to be seeking new markets - from 1.25 million barrels a day today to 2.8 million in 2015, according to a forecast last month by the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers (CAPP) - that increase is lagging expectations. Last year, CAPP was expecting output to hit 3.4 million barrels a day by 2015, but delays, problems and cancellations have led to those predictions being scaled back.

Developments like Syncrude Canada Ltd.'s 2006 expansion of its oil sands plant and Husky Energy Inc.'s Tucker project aren't producing as much oil as expected due to problems in getting the technology to work as effectively as they had hoped.

Others, including foreign firms Total SA and StatoilHydro ASA, have pushed back massive oil sands projects because of cost pressures, as well as concerns over the unspecified costs of meeting forthcoming federal environmental legislation aimed at reducing greenhouse gases.

Judith Dwarkin, an analyst at Ross Smith Energy Group, said she is not surprised Enbridge has delayed Texas Access, saying building the pipeline was "always a speculative notion."

She doesn't think the change is related to the pace of development in oil sands, but is more related to price. Producers would likely get better prices for their crude output from Enbridge's alternative Trailbreaker project from Sarnia to Maine, or from the company's Gateway pipeline which would connect Alberta to the Pacific Coast, enabling exports to Asia.

While Texas Access is off the table for now, Enbridge's rivals - who don't have the luxury of pursuing a cheaper option like Trailbreaker - maintain the economics still support their proposals to bring crude to the Gulf Coast. TransCanada Corp. is eyeing a $7-billion, 700,000-barrel-a-day pipeline to the region, while Kinder Morgan Inc. and closely held Altex Energy Ltd. also have projects on the table.

Temporary Foreign Workers; Initiative aims to educate workers in Alberta

jessie — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 09:15:17 -0700

Temporary Foreign Workers; Initiative aims to educate workers in Alberta

Richard Gilbert, July 2, 2008, Journal of Commerce -- Temporary foreign workers (TFW) in Alberta are being encouraged to learn their workplace rights.

The provincial Workers’ Compensation Board (WCB) is in the early stages of launching a campaign to educate temporary foreign workers about their rights, wages and benefits.

The issue of temporary foreign workers is a concern for the board, so it will soon be launching the multi-language campaign.

“This year, we (the WCB) decided to expand our target audience to include temporary foreign workers,” said WCB spokeswoman Jennifer Dagsvik.

“Being in a new country with new laws, temporary foreign workers may experience the same fears as young workers feel. A fear of speaking up for their safety.”

Dagsvik explained that TFWs may be scared of losing their job, hitting a language barrier, looking weak or not knowing how to ask if a job is safe.

“We were planning our campaign for young workers and thought it was an opportunity to see why people don’t speak up,” she said.

“This is the first proactive campaign aimed at temporary foreign workers in Alberta.”

Give Safety a Voice is the theme of the campaign, and one of the posters will feature a close up of a south Asian man wearing a hard hat and safety glasses on a construction site.

In the background, the same man fell over some lumber and sustained an injury.

“You may not speak the boss’s language but you still have the right to work in a safe place,” it states. “Don’t let fear silence you into expecting anything less. Give safety a voice.”

Over his mouth is a piece of duct tape with the words, Fear of not being understood.

According to Dagsvik, the campaign will also feature other posters and a brochure specifically aimed at TFWs.

The WCB is in the process of figuring out what languages should be offered for the brochure and the posters.

It will send out letters to various associations to ask if they have specific preferences.

Once this is done, 10,000 brochures will be printed and sent out to all associations affiliated with TFWs.

For the past several years, the WCB in Alberta ran a campaign aimed at young workers between the ages of 16 and 24 called Heads Up.

This year, the WCB is expanding and re-designing their Heads Up brochures.

It will be releasing three different brochures aimed at young workers, foreign workers and employers.

The brochures will explain that all workers in Alberta who work in WCB covered industries are covered with no-fault insurance, if they are injured on the job.

They will also show workers how to get the information they need.

A large share of the funding for the campaign came from the Alberta Ministry of Employment and Immigration.

Dion's green anti-poverty plan

jessie — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 08:54:35 -0700

Dion's green anti-poverty plan

Carol Goar, June 25, 2008, Toronto Star -- When Stéphane Dion announced last November that a Liberal government would cut poverty by 30 per cent – and child poverty by 50 per cent – within five years, his political opponents scoffed.

Where would he find the billions of dollars he needed to deliver on his commitment?

Now we know the answer – or at least a large part of the answer.

Dion's proposed carbon tax, unveiled last week, would allow him to launch the most aggressive anti-poverty program in 40 years.

His "green shift" would transfer wealth from rich to poor; from the oil patch to the rest of the country; and from the coffers of big business to the pockets of low-income Canadians.

Roughly $9 billion of the $15.3 billion Dion expects to collect annually in carbon tax revenues would be returned to Canadians earning less than $40,000 a year. He would use both income tax cuts and benefits targeted at children, low wage earners, rural residents and individuals with disabilities.

It would be unthinkable, under the current tax system, to redistribute a sum of this magnitude. The Liberals are gambling that, under a pollution-based tax system, it would be politically feasible to take from the "haves" and give to the "have-nots."

It is too early to say whether this strategy will work.

Voters need time to figure out whether they'd lose or gain in a low-carbon economy and decide whether the threat of climate change warrants a wholesale reconfiguration of the tax system.

In the meantime, it is possible to evaluate the poverty-reduction aspects of the Liberal blueprint.

They won't carry Dion all the way to his goal of cutting the number of Canadians living below the poverty line by 30 per cent. Last week's tax changes will have to be supplemented with investments in affordable housing, child care, public transit, job training and aboriginal development.

But it does look as if his fiscal framework will accommodate the three objectives he set last fall:

He said he would expand and improve the Canada Child Tax Benefit. Last week, he backed that up with a pledge to introduce a $350 universal child tax benefit, paid for with $2.9 billion of carbon tax revenues.

He said he would increase support for low-income seniors. Last week, he fleshed that out with a proposal to raise the Guaranteed Income Supplement, which is targeted at pensioners with no savings, by $600 a year over the course of a Liberal mandate. Cost: $800 million in carbon tax proceeds.

And he said he would make work pay more than welfare. Last week, he outlined his party's plan to enrich the Conservative government's Working Income Tax Benefit and replace its regressive employment tax credit with a $1,850 refund targeted at those earning less than $50,000. Cost: $765 million covered by the carbon tax.

When Dion made his original commitment, it was obvious he would need more than these initiatives to reach his target.

Now he has added a fourth policy thrust. He will cut the lowest personal tax rate (paid on the first $37,885 of taxable income) to 13.5 per cent from 15 per cent at a cost of $4.2 billion.

To broaden his plan's appeal, he will also reduce the two middle-income tax rates by 1 percentage point apiece. This will cost $2.5 billion. (The highest tax rate will remain at 29 per cent.)

There is no guarantee that every low-income household would come out ahead. Under Dion's plan, a family renting a poorly insulated apartment, heated with oil, in a province that depends on fossil fuels for electricity, could end up paying a hefty carbon tax.

But on balance, his "green shift" would help the poor at the expense of affluent consumers and heavy polluters, particularly companies extracting oil from the tar sands of Alberta and Saskatchewan.

The Liberal leader promised seven months ago to "embark on a war on poverty never seen before in Canada's history."

People thought he was exaggerating. It turns out that he meant it.

Dozens attend fund raiser to protest Alberta gasification project (Coal-Protest)

jessie — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 08:41:53 -0700

Dozens attend fund raiser to protest Alberta gasification project (Coal-Protest)

Canadian Press, June 28, 2008, TOFIELD, Alta. -- Dozens of people who live near Tofield, Alta., have turned out for a festival and fund-raiser to protest a proposed gasification project by Sherritt International and Epcor.

Bill Sears says his farm, which has belonged to his family for generations, is threatened by the project.

The project is planned for south of Tofield and would take up 312 square kilometres of farmland, roughly half the size of Edmonton.

Area resident Mary Korobko says it just boggles her mind that the government of Alberta and Sherritt would even consider tearing up that much farm land.

Critics of the project recently put up a billboard near Tofield which opposes the project.

They hope money raised from the festival will help keep area residents informed about the project.

"A majority of the money will be for what we term as ´keeping the public up to speed´ on things we feel they should know about," said critic Brian Schultz.

However, others believe the project would revitalize the area with new jobs.

"I think the coal mine around here might do a lot of good," said Owen Jones.

If the project goes ahead, the coal from the mine would go to produce synthetic gas to power tar sands upgraders. Sherritt and Epcor say the land would be reclaimed after the 40-year project is complete.

If the project goes ahead landowners will be forced to sell their land outright or be relocated while the mining takes place.

Upgrader Alley alarm sounded; Residents join Greenpeace in urging government to slow pace of development

jessie — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 11:13:10 -0700

Upgrader Alley alarm sounded; Residents join Greenpeace in urging government to slow pace of development

Robin Collum, June 20, 2008, The Edmonton Journal -- Residents of the area known as Upgrader Alley spoke out Thursday against more energy industrial development planned near their homes and farms.

"We are asking Premier Stelmach's government for responsible development that is ecologically and socially sustainable," said Barb Collier, a third-generation farmer from the area and member of Citizens for Responsible Development.

Collier's group held a news conference Thursday with Greenpeace Canada and the Sierra Club to express concerns about the pace of industrial growth in the Industrial Heartland northeast of Edmonton. They say development is out of control and will pollute the air and water, endanger residents, and destroy valuable agricultural land.

Right now, only one upgrader is in production, but there could be as many as nine working plants in the area by 2020, with a combined output of four million barrels of synthetic crude per day.

Echoing the recommendations of a Pembina Institute report released on Monday, the activists called on the provincial government to pause oil-industry development in the area. They don't want any more projects approved until a full analysis can be done on the environmental and social effects of development.

"These upgraders are in the premier's backyard. He has a constituency office in Fort Saskatchewan, yet applications and approval are going through unabated," Collier said. "We need to slow down approval of upgraders in the Heartland until comprehensive cumulative effects of air emissions, water use, and land use are calculated."

Wayne Groot's family has been farming in Alberta since the 1930s, and at the same location in the area for 30 years. The land bordering his farm has now been almost entirely bought by energy companies. He said he's most concerned that building upgraders in the area is a waste of prime farmland.

"Edmonton was built on an island of good agricultural land, and we're quickly running out of this soil. We have to start realizing that this land can no longer be taken away, that it has to be preserved," he said.

Sturgeon County resident Anne Brown had air quality on her mind Thursday.

"The air in Alberta's Industrial Heartland, just 30 kilometres northeast of Edmonton, is polluted," she said, citing ambient air quality monitoring results.

Brown said there have been incidents already where the air quality had dipped below Alberta objectives, and she's worried that adding eight more upgraders in the vicinity will make the situation worse.

Leila Darwish, associate director of the Sierra Club's prairie branch, tried to put the residents' concerns in a larger context for all Albertans.

"This isn't just a local issue--this is a provincial issue," she said. "We're turning the Heartland into a wasteland."

In Darwish's opinion, continued development along Upgrader Alley would discredit the government's recent efforts to improve the international reputation of Alberta's energy resources.

"Albertans need to come together and stand in solidarity and send the message to our premier that spending $25 million to paint the tarsands green doesn't work when you can't even keep your own backyard clean."

There will be a public hearing on June 23 in Fort Saskatchewan to review Petro-Canada's application to build an upgrader that would process 340,000 barrels of bitumen a day.

Marathon Oil approved for $1.9-billion expansion in Detroit

jessie — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 11:11:48 -0700

Marathon Oil approved for $1.9-billion expansion in Detroit

Tina Lam, June 20, 2008, Freep.com -- Marathon Oil, which operates Michigan's only refinery, won permission today from state environmental officials for its planned $1.9-billion expansion in southwest Detroit.

Detroit's City Council already approved a package of $176 million in tax exemptions and the company has already held a job fair.

The company made a number of pledges to try to reduce the effect of extra particulate matter the refinery will emit in an area already thick with factories.

The Department of Environmental Quality said it approved the necessary air permits for the expansion because of those promises, including street sweeping of paved roads in the area to keep particulates off the streets, retrofitting Detroit school buses to capture particulate matter from diesel exhaust so children aren't as heavily exposed as they otherwise would be, and maintaining four air monitoring stations near the refinery, making the data public.

Marathon has also promised that 51% of the 135 permanent jobs at the expanded refinery will be set aside for Detroit residents.

The $1.9-billion expansion will add 15% capacity, from 100,000 barrels of oil per day to 115,000 barrels, to accommodate tar sands oil from Canada.

The company acknowledged in the past that the expansion will increase air emissions by 10% over current levels, still below state and federal requirements.

At hearings on the tax breaks and air permits, some residents of southwest Detroit said no more industry should be located in their area because it's already jammed with pollution-producing factories. Others said the jobs were crucial to the city.

Marathon has said it hoped to have the expansion on line by the end of 2010.

Think-tank urges Upgrader Alley time out: Environmental impact overlooked, says Pembina

jessie — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 11:05:25 -0700

Think-tank urges Upgrader Alley time out: Environmental impact overlooked, says Pembina

Robin Collum, June 17, 2008, Calgary Herald -- An independent energy think-tank is recommending a pause on development along Upgrader Alley until long-term plans are put in place to deal with the area's environmental impact.

Right now there is only one upgrader running in the 530-square-kilometre industrial zone between Fort Saskatchewan and Lamont known as Alberta's Industrial Heartland.

Two more projects are under construction and applications have been submitted for five more.

In a report released Monday, the Pembina Institute analyzes the impact this growth will have on the area's land, water and air quality, as well as the demands it will put on local infrastructure.

The report concludes growth is happening faster than the government is prepared to plan for it, and recommends a pause in construction to allow environmental regulations and infrastructure development to catch up.

"We would like to see a pause in development so that we get the planning in place first before any more upgraders are constructed," said Mary Griffiths, lead author of the report. "This would not mean a halt on development, because we already have two upgraders being constructed and a third one being expanded."

In total, the eight projects under construction or proposed would process 1.9 million barrels of oilsands bitumen a day.

Andrew Stephens, senior vice-president of corporate relations for Petro-Canada, said his company, which hopes to have its Sturgeon County upgrader built by 2011, has a water strategy in place that will enable it to cap withdrawals from the North Saskatchewan River at current levels.

Petro-Canada's Edmonton refinery expansion and its proposed Sturgeon County upgrader would use wastewater from Edmonton and Sturgeon Country sewage treatment plants.

"Our plan would be to use all of the wastewater that Sturgeon Country would otherwise have to treat," Stephens said outside an investors conference in Calgary. "We'll treat it and use it for cooling, recycle it and then provide it back to Sturgeon County to use further."

Griffiths said Pembina has advocated the use of waste treatment water and she said Petro-Canada's work in the area could be a stepping stone to building a network for waste treatment water users.

"The only downside is it still reduces flows in the river because the cleaned up waste treatment water isn't being put back in," she said.

The report states that, every year, Upgrader Alley will consume twice as much natural gas and 10 times as much water as the City of Edmonton. It will use enough electricity to power every home in Alberta and emit an estimated 45 megatonnes of greenhouse gases -- the equivalent of putting 10 million vehicles on the road.

"What we found is that the scale of development of Upgrader Alley northeast of Edmonton is much greater than probably most people in the region recognize," Griffiths said.

Griffiths was careful to emphasize that her conclusions are not anti-development, but a push for more responsible growth.

"Albertans can benefit from upgrading bitumen within the province, rather than exporting it for upgrading elsewhere, since the upgrading process creates jobs and forms the basis for many value-added products," the report reads.

"However, the developments planned for Upgrader Alley will have far-reaching effects on those living in the region."

The Alberta government is working on a growth management plan for the Capital Region, but it won't be finished until 2010.

According to Neil Shelly, executive director of the Alberta's Industrial Heartland Association, government and industry are doing everything they should to minimize the upgraders' footprint.

"In developing the heartland area we've always had our focus on that triple bottom line of economic, environmental and social development. We're looking at the environmental impacts and how we can mitigate them," he said.

He said the industry has been taking steps on its own to minimize damage to the environment. For example, experts are creating detailed airflow models to try to limit air pollution. Also, he said, most of the proposed plants are designed to be compatible with future carbon-sequestration facilities, which would be used to bury carbon dioxide deep underground.

According to the institute's report, however, measures like that won't be enough if they aren't combined with more aggressive government oversight.

"Given the fact that projects are likely to be approved before detailed plans and infrastructure are in place, some of the problems associated with rapid and uncontrolled growth in the Fort McMurray region could reoccur in Upgrader Alley," the report says.

The report's findings were echoed by lawyer Richard Secord, who represents a group of Industrial Heartland landowners.

"(My clients) are very unhappy with the performance of the regulator, Alberta Environment, in terms of the regional monitoring -- or lack thereof -- that's going on in that area," he said. "There shouldn't be any new projects approved until these problems are ironed out."