Alberta Energy Regulator

Efforts to investigate damage from contaminated wastewater onto Indigenous lands in Alberta are crucial, but won’t undo the years of damage from weak enforcement of Canada’s environmental laws.

When the Alberta Energy Regulator (AER) announced Imperial Oil had to pay a $50,000 administrative penalty, it said this was the maximum base amount allowed under the Environmental Protection and Enhancement Act. This is "absolutely not" accurate, according to experts.

The group's current president, Laurie Pushor, announced last week that he wouldn't seek a new contract after his current term expires next April.

The Alberta Energy Regulator's $50,000 fine for Imperial Oil for tailings leaks at one of its oilsands facilities is a paltry measure in the face of its massive profits, according to several critics.

Following years of advocacy and struggle, Indigenous nations downstream of the oilsands have received funding to understand the diseases they argue are a direct cause of the fossil fuel industry.

In the latest version of its annual forecast, released Monday, the Alberta Energy Regulator predicts production of raw bitumen will grow to four million barrels per day in 2033, up from the 3.4 million barrels per day that was produced last year.

For the first time, Alberta's oil and gas industry has exceeded the province's own regulatory limit for natural gas flaring.

A Calgary energy company has been ordered to abandon close to 2,000 wells, pipeline sections and other facilities over concerns about care and maintenance of the sites. But questions remain about whether Tallahassee Exploration will be able to pay for the multimillion-dollar reclamation plan the provincial regulator has ordered the company to submit.

In February, Energy Minister Brian Jean wrote a letter to the Alberta Energy Regulator suggesting three coal exploration applications for the province's Rocky Mountains should be exempt from a government order banning such development.

An Alberta ranching community is fighting a planned hearing on proposed coal exploration in the Rocky Mountains, saying the province's arm's-length energy regulator shouldn't have heeded a letter from its energy minister suggesting an application from Northback Holdings be accepted.

A massive carbon capture project in Canada’s oilsands should require an environmental impact assessment, say a local First Nation and environmental groups who are calling on the provincial government to make it happen.

Located smack-dab in the middle of the Athabasca oilsands, Fort McKay is the bull's-eye on the dart board of the world's third-largest crude oil reserve. 

David Goldie says it's a good time to take on new challenges as he approaches the five-year mark at the watchdog agency.

The report notes Alberta's government has already set up a drought advisory panel to begin water usage negotiations, while B.C. Premier David Eby has called his province's situation "the most dramatic drought conditions that we've seen."