Politics, Business & Culture in the Americas

Canada to Better Regulate Pollution from Oil Sands



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Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s administration and Alberta’s regional government have pledged to develop a plan to correct “significant” flaws in the environmental oversight and pollution monitoring program of Canada’s vast oil sands within 90 days. The announcement follows a report from the federal Oil Sands Advisory Panel, which highlighted “significant shortcomings in the monitoring system as a whole” and forced Environment Minister John Baird to acknowledge that the administration has failed to adequately monitor the impact of oil sands exploitation on air, water and land resources.

The oil sands industry plans to expand production to 3.4 million barrels a day by 2020. The proposed expansion of production in Canada is also meeting some opposition in the U.S. as environmental groups lobby to block the expansion of the pipeline that carries Canadian crude oil to refineries in Oklahoma and Illinois.

Critics of the oil sands project and expanded production contend that the Canadian government should take a stronger role in protecting the environment under existing legislation, instead of leaving responsibility to regional governments that have thus far failed to adequately protect the environment, according to the report. 



Tags: Canada, Environment, Oil sands, Steven Harper
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