Category: Environmental Page 3 of 58

The 2025 Mine Financial Security Program Update: Security Collected for Aging Syncrude Mine Offers a First Estimate of Mine Closure Costs

On October 3, 2025

In Energy, Environmental, Natural Resources, Oil & Gas

By: Drew Yewchuk and Martin Olszynski

Documents Commented On: Annual Mine Financial Security Program Submissions 2025 Submissions for 2024 Reporting Year; Mine Financial Security Program – Security and Liability, September 29, 2025.

PDF Version: The 2025 Mine Financial Security Program Update: Security Collected for Aging Syncrude Mine Offers a First Estimate of Mine Closure Costs

This is our annual update post in response to submissions for the Mine Financial Security Program (MFSP) being posted to the Alberta Energy Regulator (AER) website. See last year’s post here. The MFSP is Alberta’s troubled system for obtaining financial security to ensure the closure (decommissioning, remediation, and reclamation) of oilsands and coal mines when they stop operating. For a detailed assessment of the weaknesses in the MFSP, see our 2023 paper coauthored with Andrew Leach, “Not Fit for Purpose: Oil Sands Mines and Alberta’s Mine Financial Security Program”. The government conducted a review of the MFSP from 2021-2024 that concluded in February 2025 with minor changes that do not repair fundamental problems with the MFSP – see our post here.

The Government of Alberta’s Commitment to Protect Alberta’s Water from Selenium Pollution

By Nigel Bankes

On October 1, 2025

In Energy, Environmental, Natural Resources, Responsible Energy Development Act

By: Nigel Bankes, David Luff, and Neil Kathol

Matters Commented On: (1) Press Conference on the Coal Industry Modernization Initiative, December 20, 2024, (2) Bringing Alberta Coal Mining into the 21st Century, and (3) Your Province, Your Premier, January 25, 2025.

PDF Version: The Government of Alberta’s Commitment to Protect Alberta’s Water from Selenium Pollution

Over the course of the past ten months the Government of Alberta, through statements made by Premier Smith and Ministers Jean and Schulz, has committed to ensure that, going forward, the end of pipe discharge standard for selenium for all coal mines in the province will be 0 micrograms per litre (the zero-discharge standard) i.e., no new mines may operate or obtain permits to operate if there is any chance they could discharge any amount of additional selenium into surface or groundwater, or by windblown particulates.

The Mature Asset Strategy for Alberta’s Oil and Gas Closure Liability Crisis: Where there is Smoke [and Mirrors], there is Fire

By Martin Olszynski

On September 30, 2025

In Administrative Law, Energy, Environmental, Natural Resources, Oil & Gas

By: Martin Olszynski, Drew Yewchuk, and Shaun Fluker

Matter Commented On: Alberta’s Mature Asset Strategy: What we Heard and Recommendations Report, April 3, 2025

PDF Version: The Mature Asset Strategy for Alberta’s Oil and Gas Closure Liability Crisis: Where there is Smoke [and Mirrors], there is Fire

The Alberta government is poised yet again to change its policy direction for addressing the crisis of unfunded closure liabilities in the conventional oil and gas sector. The current yet-to-be-fully-implemented Liability Management Framework (LMF) was announced – to considerable fanfare – just five years ago, in what seemed like an exchange for $1 billion in federal COVID funding to be applied towards closure work on inactive and orphaned facilities. Now that this federal money has been spent (although $137 million was curiously not spent and had to be returned), and Alberta’s inactive well inventory appears to once again be growing, it is apparently time to abandon the LMF for a ‘new’ policy direction that, if nothing else, will once again delay actually dealing with the problem: enter the Mature Asset Strategy (MAS).

First Five Building Canada Act Projects of National Interest (PONIs): Hot to Trot, or All for Naught?

By David V Wright

On September 25, 2025

In Energy, Environmental, Indigenous, Natural Resources

By: David V. Wright

Matter Commented On: Building Canada Act, SC 2025, c 2, s 4

PDF Version: First Five Building Canada Act Projects of National Interest (PONIs): Hot to Trot, or All for Naught?

After months of speculation (see e.g. here), the first list of projects of national interest (PONIs) under the new Building Canada Act (BCA), SC 2025, c 2, s 4 was recently released by the federal government. So, now what? This post explores where these projects sit in the new BCA process and the legal paths ahead. Discussion is framed around several key legal questions that bring to the surface some of the complexities that will arise during implementation of the new regime. This builds on the previous ABlawg post that discussed and commented upon the basic structure of the BCA.

CEO of the Alberta Energy Regulator Denies Public Hearing Rights on a Coal Application

By Nigel Bankes

On September 15, 2025

In Administrative Law, Environmental, Natural Resources

By: Nigel Bankes and Shaun Fluker

Decisions Commented On: AER Panel Decision (July 23, 2025 – Proceeding 449) and AER Reconsideration Decision (August 21, 2015)

PDF Version: CEO of the Alberta Energy Regulator Denies Public Hearing Rights on a Coal Application

This post comments on a recent interlocutory proceeding at the Alberta Energy Regulator (AER or Regulator) concerning a motion by Summit Coal Inc. (Summit) to cancel a scheduled public hearing on its coal mine project application. The basis for the motion was that all the directly and adversely affected persons who initially opposed the application, had subsequently withdrawn their opposition. Accordingly, Summit submitted there was no longer a need for a public hearing to consider the application. The AER panel assigned to the hearing dismissed Summit’s motion on July 23, ruling that the hearing should proceed because two ENGOs with full participation status in the hearing remain opposed to the application. On August 21 the AER’s Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Rob Morgan issued a reconsideration decision that reversed the panel’s ruling and cancelled the public hearing. Two novel questions of law under the Responsible Energy Development Act, SA 2012, c R-17.3 (REDA) arise from these decisions: (1) as a matter of law does the CEO have the authority to vary or reverse a decision of a panel of a hearing commissioners seized with an application to the AER and (2) what is the legal significance of being “directly and adversely affected” for the purposes of a hearing on an application before the AER.