Energy and Climate Change

Living Oceans welcomed the release today of the Ministerial Panel's report on the Trans Mountain Pipeline, observing that the panel posed penetrating questions that the government will be expected to answer in rendering its decision on the controversial pipeline and tanker project.

VANCOUVER – Northern Gateway opponents are celebrating a landmark court decision that strikes down the federal government’s approval of Enbridge’s controversial pipeline project.

Vancouver:  Living Oceans greeted with skepticism media reports that Natural Resources Canada had discovered that diluted bitumen “doesn’t sink as readily as conventional oil” when spilled into water “unless exposed to high temperatures and weathering”.

VANCOUVER—The National Energy Board’s recommendation today in favour of the Kinder Morgan pipeline expansion comes as no surprise to Living Oceans, an intervenor in the process; but it leaves B.C. still without assurance that Premier Clark's five conditions for approval can be met.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
VANCOUVER—Groups are commending the federal government’s commitment to protect the north coast of British Columbia from oil spills with a tanker ban, and calling on the government to make it a permanent, legislated oil tanker ban. On the 27th anniversary of the Exxon Valdez oil spill that devastated the community of Cordova, Alaska and left Prince William Sound with an oily legacy that persists to this day, Sierra Club BC and Living Oceans Society say that a legislated oil tanker ban is the only certain way to protect B.C.’s north coast from a similar fate.

Burnaby – First Nations and environmental groups today welcomed the federal government’s announcement of a new “transition process” for projects under environmental review, including Kinder Morgan’s pipeline and oil tanker expansion proposal. However, more detail is needed to determine whether the new review will meet legal obligations to First Nations and succeed in restoring public trust.

Burnaby, BC-First Nations and environmental groups are calling on Prime Minister Trudeau to stop the Kinder Morgan process and honour his promise to restore credibility to the environmental assessment process. The groups believe the process is so catastrophically flawed, there is no way that a final recommendation from the NEB can be considered credible.