Perhaps if the 100% industry-funded (most of it foreign money) AER (previously ERCB, EUB before that, and ERCB before it was EUB) Charter-violating abusive bully to harmed landowners extraordinaire, spent less time viciously attacking impacted families and more time regulating polluters, there would be no need to cut industry’s funding by $103 million/year. Industry and CAPP must be delighted though with this buddy Kenney move.
Snap above from: https://twitter.com/molszyns
Canada, the world’s stupidest “petro” (fascist) state: Oil giants pay billions less tax in Canada than abroad
Someone else suing the Hanky-Panky-infested AER? Will Steve Allen, expensive Witchin’ Snitcher Collector, investigate?
Alberta Energy Regulator faces major overhaul by Jeff Lewis, July 9, 2019, The Globe and Mail
Alberta’s energy watchdog is bracing for budget cuts and layoffs in an overhaul that underscores renewed concern about the energy industry’s financial health. [Or using that old story as excuse to rid the foul agency of bad and or hanky panky blood? Lots of companies are still posting billions in profits, taking most of the money out of the country. Are you going to include those mostly foreign-funded multinationals in your witch hunt Premier Kenney?]
The cutbacks follow multiple investigations into the Alberta Energy Regulator’s (AER) former chief executive and comes as it struggles with fallout from the industry-wide downturn, including a glut of defunct oil and gas wells. [Downturn? Or companies intentionally walking from their responsibilities after raping out the easy profits, the way Alberta politicians/AER/Orphan Well Club helped set up and enabled for decades? When companies are still making billions in profits and spending fortunes automating to dramatically cut out profit-eating jobs, it’s hard to see any “downturn.”]
AER interim CEO Gordon Lambert told staff in a June 24 e-mail that shifts in global oil markets mean some companies can no longer afford levies that support the regulator’s operating budget. Fees are based on a variety of factors including the AER’s revenue requirement, the previous year’s production volumes and the number of wells and operators in the province. [What’s next? Drop royalties even more, make Albertans give the greedy frac’ing scheisters more than they already are? On top of the health harms, putrid air pollution and noise impacts, community division and road destruction, livestock losses, clean up costs, contaminated water supplies and exploding community water towers, ground and surface spills and more spills waiting decades for cleanup but never getting cleaned up etc etc etc?]
[Intentionally poor controls? Like AER intentionally letting companies walk, hanging Albertans with billions in clean up costs?]
The AER oversees major oil-sands plants and pipelines in the province and had a budget of around $252.8-million in the last fiscal year. Although [100%] funded by industry, the budget is set and approved by the provincial government.
The magnitude of the cuts was not immediately known, but a source with direct knowledge of the organization’s finances said it is currently operating with an interim budget of about $150-million and that staff reductions are likely. The person was granted anonymity by The Globe and Mail because the individual was not authorized to speak publicly on the matter.
Top executives at the AER are working closely with Premier Jason Kenney’s government “to address the challenges posed by the current fiscal situation,” Mr. Lambert wrote in the internal e-mail, a copy of which was obtained by The Globe. The final outcome of the budgeting process will not be known until September or October, he added.
“The AER, along with all levels of government, need to find new ways of operating.
Innovative leadership is required across the organization to manage in ‘new normal’ circumstances where oil and gas revenues are considerably reduced,” he wrote.
“As a result, we are examining a range of business models aimed at building a sustainable future state for the AER and our employees.”
It is unclear at this time whether the province would top up the regulator’s budget. [Meaning Albertans, already plenty raped and abused by the oil and gas industry, and it’s Charter violating, lying AER]
Scores of energy firms have collapsed in recent years, leaving behind thousands of oil and gas wells with no legal owner. Trident Exploration Corp. in April became the latest energy producer to shut down operations. It walked away after handing custody of 4,700 wells to the regulator.
Earlier this month, the United Conservative government stepped in with $23-million in emergency tax relief to head off further bankruptcies of struggling natural gas producers.
The AER is also embroiled in investigations launched by Alberta Ethics Commissioner Marguerite Trussler, Public Interest Commissioner Marianne Ryan and Auditor General Doug Wylie into a consultancy run by its former CEO, Jim Ellis. [Too funny!]
He led the AER for five years but resigned abruptly last fall amid allegations that he diverted public resources and money for a startup nonprofit.
[Harmed Albertan on Ellis’ departure: “Good riddance, bring in the next dickhead.”]
Spokeswoman Cara Tobin said the AER would seek additional funding after the provincial budget is released but is reviewing options now in anticipation of cuts. [Billion dollar profit-taking, AER enabling, walking from responsibility, industry whining/threatening for more handouts or else?]
“While we are undertaking this work on the assumption that we will face a budget reduction, it is too early to speculate about details such as staffing levels at this time,” she said in a statement.
Mr. Kenney pledged during the spring election campaign to fire the AER board in response to industry criticisms over lengthy delays to major projects and new drilling permits. However, much of the board remains intact. [Roaring Laughter!]
Energy Minister Sonya Savage’s office did not respond by deadline Tuesday.
In May, Mr. Kenney appointed a panel led by former Saskatchewan NDP finance minister Janice MacKinnon to assess the province’s finances ahead of a fall budget. A report is expected by mid-August.
Refer also to:
But only if you are a concerned citizen, harmed landowner or cookie making grandmother, not if you are a polluting company or aquifer frac’er like Encana. (The head in the poster is ex-Premier Ed Stelmach, who defended the EUB/then ERCB/now AER spying on innocent Albertans!)
2007 07 28: Why is AER (then EUB) so reviled?
2012 02 07: 171,000 frac’d wells later, the Alberta energy regulator, the ERCB (previously EUB, soon to be AER) trots out Draft Hydraulic Fracturing Directive
2013 09, posted in 2014, 4:43 Min:
Above clip of AER’s outside counsel, Glenn Solomon, on how companies shut you up when their frac’ing contaminates your drinking water, keeping AER off their back and letting companies do it again “down the street.”
2015 07 09: How High does Bullshit Fly in Alberta’s Oil Patch and AER?
2015 10 16: AER gets a frac “expert,” a liar no less?
2016 AER Admin Fees, CAPP a Begging: Research to Con the Public to give Social Licence While Wiping out Legal Liability for Companies?
2016 08 01: Why isn’t AER’s Fox Creek Frac Frenzy Regulatory Failure front page news?
Slides above and below from Ernst speaking events
Ernst presenting in Dublin, Republic of Ireland
Ernst was judged by the EUB a “criminal” in 2005. ERCB outside counsel Glenn Solomon changed this to “terrorist” in 2012. Both judgements were completed by the regulator without any evidence, no charges, no arrest or fingerprinting by RCMP or any authority, no hearing, no trial. The regulator did not ask Ernst to testify or submit a written statement. Ernst didn’t know she was being judged, until after the judgement was mailed to her, banishing her from energy regulation.
Six months later, in full McCarthyism regalia, EUB bully lawyer extraordinaire, Rick McKee, used red-baiting trickery trying to make Ernst admit to crimes she had not committed to justify the regulator violating her Charter rights. McKee failed, making a mockery of the regulator, and admitted the EUB had never seen Ernst as a threat.
In 2017, the EUB/ERCB/AER’s judgement was transformed into “vexatious litigant” by Supreme Court of Canada Justice Rosalie Abella – also without any evidence, hearing, or trial, and also with no chance given to Ernst to defend herself to this judicial smear.
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Supreme Petro-State Court of Canada