Presentation to Air and Waste Management Association Canadian Clean Air Policy ConferenceThe Fairmont Chateau Laurier, Ottawa

Air emission management is a lot like combining the children's games of hide and seek with snakes and ladders. In moving through the steps of the game, we should aim to climb up the most ladders and slide down the fewest snakes. A principal challenge is that the ladders and snakes can be obscured or disguised. In air emission control policy ladders are often mistaken for snakes and there are some nasty snakes disguised as ladders.  read more »

Oil prices are sky high but the sky is not falling. Improvements in efficiency since the oil price shocks in the 1970s mean that high prices won't cause a repeat of the nasty economic indigestion we suffered then.

Some environmentalists, focused only on the increased incentive to conserve energy, welcome these high prices. They forget that high prices encourage expansion of our most polluting and environmentally risky oil sources -- tar sands, heavy oil and Hibernia.  read more »

Kudos to our federal government if it gets out of Petro-Can, a venture it should never have started. Once they are no longer an investor, the feds may do a better job enforcing environmental rules in the oilpatch. The sale proceeds might constructively be used restoring environmental enforcement, with any leftovers going to remediate federal contaminated sites.

Liquefied natural gas (LNG) is rapidly gaining in policy popularity and commercial interest in North America.  read more »