Forests and Biodiversity

EDMONTON — A pair of United States senators who recently visited Alberta are introducing legislation that would ensure U.S. government agencies can purchase fuel products made from the province's oilsands.

While still in its early stages, the arrival of the "Oilsands Energy Security Act" should be seen as a vindication of Premier Ed Stelmach's strategy of promoting the oilsands message with key U.S. policy-makers, said Gary Mar, Alberta's top official at the Canadian Embassy in Washington, D.C.

"We shouldn't take too much away from this at this point ... but the result is, now we have a bill that gives us a strong indication people are understanding our message of what the oilsands are and what they are not," Mar said in a phone interview Friday.... Read more »

Edmonton - Greenpeace is asking provincial and federal governments to postpone hearings on Total's proposed new tar sands mine. The move follows the announcement this week of a federal scientific panel to study the tar sands effects on water, and calls by First Nation leaders and Hollywood Director James Cameron for a moratorium.

The Total hearing, which began last week, would add a 7000-hectare mine site and a massive tailings lake to the already stressed tar sands region.... Read more »

CALGARY - Alberta's environment minister says he was taken by surprise by a federal panel appointed to look into environmental monitoring of the oilsands.

Rob Renner says Alberta has led other jurisdictions when it comes to monitoring water quality in the oilsands region.

Last week, he announced the province was creating its own independent panel to determine the source of toxic metals and hydrocarbons in the land and water near the industry.

He says he has contacted his federal counterparts and made it clear that he doesn't want to see a duplication of efforts.

Renner says it's possible the two panels could end up working together in the future.

The federal panel is expected to complete its final report in 60 days, while the Alberta group has until Feb. 1.

A new report finds the Alberta government relinquished about $1.5 billion in potential energy income last year from a series of royalty reduction programs and drilling stimulus initiatives designed to spur oil-patch activity.

With the additional $1.4 billion in uncollected royalties projected for the current budget year, the province is expecting it will forfeit nearly $3 billion from the incentive programs over two years.

The Alberta Energy 2009-10 annual report released Thursday also notes that "measurement uncertainty" in petroleum production volumes initially reported to government will mean royalty revenue paid to the province last year could be off by $175 million on natural gas alone.

 ... Read more »