Tennant to head enviro monitoring panel by Dave Mabell, March 14, 2012, Lethbridge Herald
Last year, he called on the Alberta government to create an arms-length, “science-driven” system of monitoring the province’s environment. … The panel’s key recommendation, Tennant said, was an independent environmental monitoring commission “as a science-driven, arm’s length and operationally excellent public agency.”… “This is tough stuff,” he said in an interview. Persuading government to allow scientists that much authority “has never been done before.” In the face of many pressures, Tennant said the new monitoring agency is essential to preserving the province’s environment. “We have to come up with ways of measuring, recording, interpreting and reporting what’s going on in the environment – with a central focus that we’ll make better decisions about regulations, about remediation, and about evolving problems that we don’t know about.” … Joining Tennant on the panel are five Albertans from a variety of backgrounds. They include a former president of the TransCanada pipeline group…the deputy minister of environment and water, and a former deputy minister who’s moved over to the private sector. Their independence as been questioned, however. Rachel Notley, the New Democrats’ environment critic, says panel member Neil McCrank – formerly chairman of the Alberta Energy and Utilities Board – is now part of a law firm that donated $5,000 to Alison Redford’s leadership campaign. The opposition party also says panel member Hal Kvisle, a board member of Talisman Energy and the Bank of Montreal, gave $4,000 to her campaign. And Tennant donated $500 to (now deputy premier) Doug Horner’s unsuccessful ampaign, Notley says. [Emphasis added]
[Refer also to: Alberta gets tough after screwing up oilsands protection ]