One of my favourite
commentators, Rex Murphy, wordsmith at both the CBC and the National Post, recently
presented a critique of Obama on the Keystone XL pipeline and Trudeau’s changes
to the National Energy Board’s regulatory process under the title “Organized
Procrastination”[1]. Murphy’s
musings are always interesting but from this one I really had to share. I will
add some further observations on regulation but first, “heeere’s Rex’[2]
Rex Murphy’s Take
The Keystone XL pipeline
which was proposed to bring oil from the Canadian oil sands in Alberta to
refineries on the U.S Gulf coast suffered through environmental reviews while
“the Earth made eight full revolutions
around the sun” . “Keystone was given eight full years of protests,
hearings, lawsuits,editorials, seminars,submissions, arguments and
grandstanding—all to get to a big, fat “no” from Obama.”
“During much of those eight
years, it seemed like Congress, the U.S. State Department or various unions
might give Keystone a splinter of brittle hope. But the environmental
lobby…crowded the halls of Washington or Ottawa. In response, the always
elastic environmental review process was extended, redefined, subjected to
presidential delays and put up for debate—again and again. Keystone, in other
words, was utterly stonewalled.”
“At its climax , in the
decaying days of his presidency, Obama, the great procrastinator, put the
kibosh on the project to add gloss to his heal-the-planet pretensions. But not
before the companies behind the project spent $2.4 billion, while the perpetual
motion machine of the review process ground furiously and spuriously away.”
And concerning Canada’s
pipelines in waiting (especially, the proposed Energy East pipeline designed to
bring Alberta oil to Canada’s eastern coast):
“An environmental review
process is an organized procrastination. And this week’s announcement of
changes to the National Energy Board’s regulatory process-- it’s going to
become more ‘robust’—promises to be a classic in this field. Along with the
seemingly infinite expansion of “stakeholders,” the addition of a myriad of new
consultations, reviews, panels, and inquiries, it has added the sublime
requirement of measuring the “upstream” contributions to our newly Paris-taylored
CO2 exhalations. That ought to speed things up."
“Canadians, particularly
Western Canadians, and those with tenuous connections to the oil industry—you know,
the thousands who used to have jobs in it—were surely delighted to hear that
this new regulatory framework was not going to bring the Energy East pipeline ‘back
to square one’. But that’s not much of a consolation.”
“ We’ve come to a strange
point in this country, when industry and employment have to fight so hard to
breathe, when instead of saying prayers of gratitude for the immense gift of
our natural resources, we apologize for their existence and build a thicket of
review and regulation to appease all those who are ideologically and
temperamentally opposed to their exploitation. This is called, I believe,
sustainability.”
Some Observations
I have previously, concluded
that:
“The Bible does not teach
that the government may not exercise control over private property. Regulations
are required to control the sinful nature of mankind. In the current situation,
however, we should welcome deregulation and encourage continued review of all
requirements and the weeding out of those no longer necessary. “[3]
Regulation is necessary.
Certainly, good stewardship demands that we do protect God’s creation as much
as possible—remembering that God gave us His resources to use. These excerpts from Murphy’s article,
however, illustrate emphatically that regulation comes at a cost and can
quickly become overly burdensome. It seems obvious that pipeline approval
processes must be streamlined and sped up rather than added to. Isn’t
justice delayed, justice denied? We can only hope that the companies involved
in Keystone XL debacle will be successful in their lawsuit seeking to recover some
of the $2.4 billion lost in the process!
Quick resolution of the
Energy East pipeline approval process and those proposed to the West Coast, is
also critical in our current slow growth economy. Why focus on increased government infrastructure
spending to lift the economy and ignore pipelines which private industry is
ready to finance? Are these not “nation-building” projects which will unlock
Alberta resources to the benefit of all Canada? Or, would we rather continue to
import oil from Saudi Arabia and other questionable regimes? Or, will we
continue to ship oil dangerously by rail? Will that really significantly decrease
green-house gas emissions? Let’s quickly decide on the necessary regulations
and get on with the job. Our prime minister Trudeau needs to be the “cheerleader”
rather than pretend to be an impartial referee--like Obama until he dictated the end. Specify whatever conditions are needed (and already many have been) but get on with the job!
No comments:
Post a Comment