Alberta’s energy minister is undermining the independence of its energy regulator, one of several examples of the United Conservative Party government extending its grasp into supposedly arm’s-length public agencies, observers say. “We’ve been seeing this consistent pattern of political interference in public agencies,” said Nagwan Al-Guneid, energy and climate critic for the New Democrat Opposition. […]
Read MoreMany St. Catharines residents may be feeling an eerie sense of deja vu as, yet again, development of the city’s former GM property faces delays. Since the property was sold by the automaker to private developers in 2014 there have been any number of promises to clean up the old industrial site and transform it […]
Read MoreOntario will need 33,200 more nurses and 50,853 more personal support workers by 2032, the government projects — figures it tried to keep secret but were obtained by The Canadian Press. The government recently won a fight in front of the Information and Privacy Commissioner to keep those figures under wraps after denying access to […]
Read MoreNASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — The nation’s largest public utility on Thursday pledged to be more transparent after it took months to disclose that a general budget vote by its board last year also gave the CEO the final decision over several proposed natural gas power plants. The Tennessee Valley Authority’s board announced the transparency changes […]
Read MoreDeep Water Recovery, the company that has been dismantling derelict vessels in Baynes Sound since 2020, has received another out of compliance warning from the province. In an April 22 letter from the Ministry of Environment and Climate Change Strategy, environmental protection officer Katie Howatt writes that Deep Water Recovery (DWR) was out of compliance […]
Read MoreAlberta is appealing a judge’s ruling that ordered the release of internal documents on coal mining in the province’s Rocky Mountains, says the lawyer for ranchers seeking the information. “I was told by (government) counsel,” said Richard Harrison, who represents a group of southern Alberta ranchers that filed a freedom of information request in 2020 […]
Read MoreRENO, Nev. (AP) — The Biden administration has taken a significant step in its expedited environmental review of what could become the third lithium mine in the U.S., amid anticipated legal challenges from conservationists over the threat they say it poses to an endangered Nevada wildflower. The Bureau of Land Management released more than 2,000 […]
Read MoreResidents in the Town of Caledon are frustrated and fearful after recent council decisions have ignored their concerns, shut them out of critical public processes and left them wondering who exactly is planning the future of the town and its vast landscape of farmland and sensitive greenspace. Over the last month residents have watched as […]
Read MoreDocuments released under Alberta Freedom of Information laws confirm the United Conservative government was talking with the coal industry for years about relaxing a policy that protected the Rocky Mountains from open-pit mines. The documents also show the province was talking about opening those landscapes to more development generally for at least seven months before […]
Read MoreThe aftermath of last year’s fiery train derailment in eastern Ohio doesn’t qualify as a public health emergency because widespread health problems and ongoing chemical exposures haven’t been documented, federal officials said. The Environmental Protection Agency never approved that designation after the February 2023 Norfolk Southern derailment even though the disaster forced the evacuation of […]
Read MoreBC Ferries has launched a bid to build up to seven green flagship vessels but climate groups are urging the company to abandon liquified natural gas to fuel ships and speed electrification of its fleet to reach its emissions targets. The ferry service recently revealed it has teamed up with a naval architectural firm to […]
Read MoreInternal documents from Alberta’s energy regulator suggest the province’s environmental liability for hundreds of thousands of oil and gas wells could be nearly triple the figure the agency announced earlier this week. In a report released Wednesday, the Alberta Energy Regulator said the cost of cleaning up the province’s 466,000 wells would be $33.3 billion. […]
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