National Energy Board Dismisses Panel Review Recommendations
Edmonton —Sierra Club Canada says the Mackenzie Gas Project license conditions proposed by the National Energy Board represent a rejection of the key findings of the environmental assessment panel.
“We are disappointed and dismayed that the National Energy Board has brusquely dismissed four years’ work by the Joint Review Panel in its proposed conditions,” said Sheila Muxlow, acting director of Sierra Club Prairie. “The NEB is essentially rejecting the Joint Review Panel’s focus on ensuring economic and ecological sustainability, and the need to examine the cumulative effects of the basin-opening Mackenzie Gas Project”
“The NEB is taking a narrow business-as-usual approach, when it should be pushing hard to ensure that Mackenzie natural gas is used as a transition fuel towards a low-carbon economy.” said Stephen Hazell, advisor to Sierra Club Prairie. “We are looking forward to the final April hearings and to making the case that it is in Canada’s public interest that the Mackenzie Gas Project be regulated as a green pipeline that benefits northern communities as well as the oil companies.”
In the recent federal budget, environmental assessments for new energy projects were taken out of the hands of the Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency and put into the hands of the National Energy Board and the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission.
“This decision by the NEB shows clearly why it is wrong to take environmental assessments away from the jurisdiction of the Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency,” said John Bennett, Executive Director of Sierra Club Canada.
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Contact:
Michael Bernard
Director of Media Relations
Sierra Club Canada
michaelb@sierraclub.ca
(o) 613.241.4611 x230
(c) 613.302.9933
Toll free: 1.888.810.4204
“We are disappointed and dismayed that the National Energy Board has brusquely dismissed four years’ work by the Joint Review Panel in its proposed conditions,” said Sheila Muxlow, acting director of Sierra Club Prairie. “The NEB is essentially rejecting the Joint Review Panel’s focus on ensuring economic and ecological sustainability, and the need to examine the cumulative effects of the basin-opening Mackenzie Gas Project”
“The NEB is taking a narrow business-as-usual approach, when it should be pushing hard to ensure that Mackenzie natural gas is used as a transition fuel towards a low-carbon economy.” said Stephen Hazell, advisor to Sierra Club Prairie. “We are looking forward to the final April hearings and to making the case that it is in Canada’s public interest that the Mackenzie Gas Project be regulated as a green pipeline that benefits northern communities as well as the oil companies.”
In the recent federal budget, environmental assessments for new energy projects were taken out of the hands of the Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency and put into the hands of the National Energy Board and the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission.
“This decision by the NEB shows clearly why it is wrong to take environmental assessments away from the jurisdiction of the Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency,” said John Bennett, Executive Director of Sierra Club Canada.
- 30 -
Contact:
Michael Bernard
Director of Media Relations
Sierra Club Canada
michaelb@sierraclub.ca
(o) 613.241.4611 x230
(c) 613.302.9933
Toll free: 1.888.810.4204
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