NEB boss promises to beef up transparency
Trans Mountain expansion process was fair, he says
The National Energy Board plans to conduct an audit of the emergency response program at Kinder Morgan Canada’s existing facilities, board chairman and CEO Peter Watson told The Vancouver Sun, as the agency looks to give more of a public face to its regulatory work.
The audit, which could take up to a year with its results made public at the end, will be part of the NEB’s regular work in monitoring the compliance of pipeline companies, and not contribute to the board’s public review of Kinder Morgan’s $5.4-billion proposal to twin the Trans Mountain pipeline and double its capacity.
It will be a comprehensive exercise, Watson said, evaluating the company’s program starting with its policies, and include a review of its practices, its safety culture and whether employees feel confident bringing discrepancies to light.
“Their company has a good plan in place, and we’re pretty confident about the plan, but we just don’t want to be complacent,” he said.
And the audit will take place against a backdrop of public skepticism about the openness and comprehensiveness of the NEB’s review process for the project and outrage over the NEB’s ruling allowing Kinder Morgan to keep elements of its emergency response plan for the project secret.
Premier Christy Clark was among those expressing dissatisfaction about the amount of information being made public, and while Watson said there are reasons for keeping some information under wraps, he agreed the public should know more about such plans and vowed to correct the situation.
“We’ve done certain things a certain way for so long, and maybe we’re stuck,” Watson said during a Sun editorial board meeting.
“I’ve already said in some stories that I’m not happy with the information that’s out there publicly,” and he has called on the industry, through the Canadian Energy Pipeline Association, to come up with a new set of “best practices,” which he will take to public consultation.
Watson said NEB panels need a certain amount of information about emergency response to evaluate the public necessity of a project, but such plans are often not complete at the application phase because detailed engineering of facilities isn’t done.
Requirements for refined plans then become a condition of approval, Watson said, but for the Trans Mountain review the panel evaluating it has decided it has enough information.
“I know full well the public has to have confidence that there is a good emergency response framework in place and we want them to get the information they need,” Watson said.
However, whether Watson’s efforts sway the views of Metro Vancouver critics remains to be seen. The NEB’s decision last fall allowing Kinder Morgan to conduct exploratory drilling on Burnaby Mountain, over the City of Burnaby’s objections, touched off weeks of protests.
And seven Metro Vancouver mayors, including Gregor Robertson and Burnaby Mayor Derek Corrigan, at the end of March signed a statement of non-confidence in the Trans Mountain review and called on the federal government to stop it.
With 400 registered interveners “that are actively engaging and following every step,” Watson said the Trans Mountain review is probably the biggest the NEB’s history, so its panel had to find a way of keeping it effective, fair and transparent for all of them.
Watson, along with other NEB executives and panel members, is on a cross-country tour of communities where there are pipelines or other energy infrastructure that it is responsible for regulating, to engage with municipalities and educate the public on its regulatory role.
His delegation is due to meet with Metro Vancouver mayors on Friday, where Watson said he will a brief presentation before taking questions.
Too often the only time the public sees the NEB at work is during public reviews, Watson said, and many are not acquainted with its ongoing work in monitoring the operations of Canada’s existing energy infrastructure. He added he wants communities to tell him what the NEB needs to do to improve.
As far as the Trans Mountain review is concerned, however, Watson defended the NEB’s process to date, arguing it has been fair and transparent, notwithstanding the public criticism. If it didn’t abide by the “principles of natural justice,” Watson said its decisions would be overturned by the courts.
Critics are trying to pull in elements that are not part of its mandate in reviewing the proposed pipeline facilities, Watson argued, such as climate change. Upstream production from Alberta’s oilsands is a provincial jurisdiction he won’t wade into.
“We are stuck in the position,” Watson said, “where our project reviews have been the centre of a bigger debate.”