Speeding up approval of tar sands pipelines the wrong direction

Ottawa – Environmental groups ForestEthics, Dogwood Initiative and Sierra
Club Canada responded to Minister Raitt’s proposal to speed up the
approval of pipelines by calling on her to strengthen, not gut, the
process.

“At a time when the U.S. is moving to seriously tackle
global warming, our government wants to expedite the expansion of the
tar sands by ducking their environmental responsibility,” said Gillian
McEachern of ForestEthics.

During a speech to the Canadian
Energy Pipeline Association last Wednesday, Minister Raitt, who’s
responsible for overseeing the approval of new pipelines, announced
that she intends to roll back red tape to speed up the process.

The
current pipeline proposals – such as the Mackenzie Valley Pipeline and
Enbridge’s Northern Gateway Pipeline – would both facilitate the
expansion of the tar sands, Canada’s fastest growing source of global
warming pollution. The Gateway pipeline, for example, would allow
expansion equivalent to adding 1.6 million new cars on the road
annually.

“Raitt’s streamlined process would still be fat in all
the wrong places,” says Eric Swanson of Dogwood Initiative. “A truly
streamlined process would aim to reduce sources of conflict, and that
means dealing with the realities of global warming and an increasing
legal recognition of Aboriginal rights and title.”

The current
process does not take into account the global warming impact of
expanding Canada’s fossil fuel extraction that the pipelines are
intended to accommodate. First Nations in the NWT, BC and Saskatchewan
have all voiced objection to the process because it fails to address
their rights and title, and the failure to deal with these issues has
caused delays in some processes.