The Alberta government has shuttered its arm’s length environmental monitoring agency after a report concluded the program was a “failed experiment.”   Minister of Environment Shannon Phillips announced Tuesday the Alberta Environmental Monitoring, Evaluation and Reporting Agency (AEMERA) would be disbanded and environmental monitoring will return back to the government.

“It ensures government is directly accountable for environmental monitoring and that issues or gaps in monitoring are responded to immediately,” Phillips said at a press conference.

Phillip’s ministry commissioned a report that described the Alberta Environmental Monitoring, Evaluation and Reporting Agency as overly expensive, poorly co-ordinated and plagued by bureaucratic bickering.

“It is hard to escape the conclusion that AEMERA is a failed experiment in outsourcing a core responsibility of government to an arm’s-length body,” wrote report author Paul Boothe, director of the Lawrence National Centre for Policy and Management at Western University’s Ivey School of Business.

The agency was created in 2012 as a reaction to criticism about Alberta’s lack of environmental monitoring in the oilsands — but ultimately, the program failed to attain the “world-class” monitoring standard the government touted.   “Critical dollars were being diverted away from monitoring and science to overhead and administrative duplication,” Phillips said.   Under AEMERA, provincial scientists were meant to collaborate with Environment Canada to monitor the oil industry’s impacts on air, land and water. It was funded by $50 million from industry and another $28 million from the province.   The new structure will have two panels: a science advisory panel and a traditional ecological knowledge panel. For the first time, environmental monitoring results will be made available to the public.   “This openness and transparency is essential to allow Albertans to rationalize the minister’s decisions and ensure they are making decisions in the best interest of Albertans,” says Andy Read, an analyst with the Pembina Institute, a sustainable energy think tank. 

Risk of Political Interference Remains

Experts warn legislative changes are needed to avoid political interference.   “It’s not enough just to fold this and roll it into environment and parks,” says Martin Olszynski, an environmental law expert at the University of Calgary. “If they’re committed, the next piece has to be legislative change with provisions around making monitoring mandatory.”

Olszynski says he would like to see enforceable deadlines for the delivery of data through legislation.   “This kind of monitoring is costly, and it will always be costly,” says Olszynski. “It would be very easy to fold that division without a public bru haha.”   Even AEMERA, which amalgamated individual monitoring programs across the province and was meant to operate as an independent organization, was never full free of political influence, Read said.    “They were still reporting to and needed approval from the minister to release environmental information,” Read said.     Boothe’s report confirmed that: “A lack of clarity around the government’s expectations regarding AEMERA’s ‘arm’s-length’ nature contributed to the poor relations between partners.”   Three years after its creation, AEMERA had not expanded to become a province-wide environmental monitoring program and had failed to find a stabile funding structure.   There remain unanswered questions about the new monitoring system when it comes to the role of stakeholders within the province and the relationship with the federal government.   “It’s still somewhat of a gap,” Read said, pointing out the decision has implications for groups such as the Wood Buffalo Environmental Agency.   “You need to build trust with regional representatives across Alberta,” Read said. “That’s crucial in even identifying what monitoring needs are.”

Role of Federal Government Unclear

One of the report’s major criticisms of AEMERA revolved around the role of the federal government and the agency’s inability to accept Environment Canada as a partner. As of now there is no clear path on how the federal government will be involved in the new structure.   “This is a classic issue and tension in environmental law in Canada,” Olszynski said. “It’d be nice if everyone could accept that it is shared jurisdiction.”   The announced changes maintain AEMERA’s funding model, which weren’t adequate for the province-wide mandate of the agency.   Read says the polluter-pay model has to be implemented province-wide to ensure adequate funding to deliver on monitoring the entire province.   “We definitely will be paying attention to how they establish themselves to collect funding,” Read said.    The Alberta budget will be announced on April 14 and the government expects the new monitoring system to be operational by this summer.

Photo: David Dodge via Flickr

The Narwhal’s reporters are telling environment stories you won’t read about anywhere else. Stay in the loop by signing up for our free weekly dose of independent journalism.

"Transparent,” “credible, “world-class” — those are just a few of the words that have been deployed to detail the aspirations of the one-year-old organization tasked with monitoring the air, water, land and wildlife in Alberta.

But there are a lot of questions about whether the Alberta Environmental Monitoring, Evaluation and Reporting Agency (AEMERA), funded primarily by industry, has lived up to its goal to track the condition of the province’s environment.*

Unlike the Alberta Energy Regulator, which the new NDP government is considering splitting into two agencies to separate its conflicting responsibilities to both promote and policy energy development, AEMERA hasn’t spent much time in the public spotlight — yet.

Last October, Alberta’s auditor general slammed the agency for releasing its 2012-2013 annual report in June 2014, well after when it should have been released. The auditor general also said the report “lacked clarity and key information and contained inaccuracies.”

Many of the agency’s projects were missing several details and the auditor general cautioned such omissions “may jeopardize AEMERA’s ability to monitor the cumulative effects of oil sands development.”

And that’s a pretty big problem. Because if Canada is to feasibly establish a strong environmental record, it’s going to need stringent monitoring in Alberta, especially in the Lower Athabasca region where the bulk of the province’s energy industry operates.

The Birth of A Really Long Acronym: AEMERA

AEMERA was dreamt up in 2011 as a means to coalesce the dozens of monitoring organizations working in the province under one banner, firewalling the result from government and industry to avoid conflicts of interest.

Martin Olszynski, an assistant professor in law at University of Calgary who specializes in environmental law, notes that at the time of the agency’s inception, international pressure was limiting market access for oil.

“When someone went to check on the monitoring system, it turned out it was a mess,” Olsznynski says. “We weren’t getting the data that we needed.”

AEMERA — with the Joint Canada-Alberta Plan for Oil Sands Monitoring serving as the transition agency for the three years prior to its official birth — was crafted to solve that problem.

Yet Bill 31, the piece of legislation that conjured up the arms-length agency in late 2013, faced considerable criticism from the get-go. Opposition parties pleaded for more than a dozen amendments.

Many of the proposed tweaks would have addressed the tight relationship between government and the monitoring agency. Amongst other things, the legislation suggested the environment minister would appoint the board and choose when data was released to the public.

Shaun Fluker, an associate professor of law at the University of Calgary, wrote in a 2014 post that the latter provision “arguably undermines the whole structure and suggests that politics can and will override science and transparency on environmental monitoring and reporting.”

All the proposed amendments were shot down. Lorne Taylor, former environment minister under Ralph Klein and renowned anti-Kyoto Accord activist, was appointed as chair of the board. Little has changed since.

Unlike other agencies, AEMERA doesn’t mandate quotas for groups or interests on the board. As a result, Bigstone Cree elder Mike Beaver is the sole indigenous representative on the agency’s seven-member board.

Traditional Ecological Knowledge, a method of integrating indigenous worldviews into policymaking, was listed as a priority in AEMERA’s founding document — yet the auditor generals’ report noted that just three of 38 of AEMERA’s projects surveyed involved Traditional Ecological Knowledge.

Val Mellesmoen, spokesperson for AEMERA, says the organization is working hard to foster strong relationships with indigenous people. In mid-June, the organization appointed a Traditional Ecological Knowledge panel to focus on such issues.

Insufficient Funding for Mobile Air Monitoring Van

Then there’s the overarching issue of funding. Exactly $50 million was decided upon as the max that industry would contribute per year, a number that features a “conspicuously round nature,” Olszynski says.

In late March, news broke that the Wood Buffalo Environmental Association — historically the recipient of the largest amount of money for monitoring — couldn’t afford the $500,000 price tag for a new mobile air monitoring testing van on account of a lack of funding.

Andrew Read, policy analyst at the Pembina Institute, says there’s no public information available as to why $50 million was chosen as the funding cap; he has submitted multiple requests to the federal government (which coordinated the interim monitoring framework prior to AEMERA’s takeover), but hasn’t received any clarification.

Mellesmoen, the agency’s spokesperson, says it was a “gentlemen’s agreement” with the number determined by “an initial estimate that was based on industry providing an overview of what they felt they were currently spending as individual companies.”

Mellesmoen — who previously served as Taylor’s spokesperson when he was an MLA and minister — says there are questions within the agency about the reasoning for the cap.

“Even that funding model needs to be maybe looked at in the long run,” she says.

New NDP Government Could Amend Bill 31

Olszynski says the newly elected NDP could amend Bill 31 to deal with such issues. Prior to being elected as premier, Rachel Notley was an outspoken critic of the monitoring agency, at one point asserting the organization was “nowhere near ready to assume responsibility for the [Lower Athabasca] region.”

The NDP’s platform also pledged to “strengthen environmental standards, inspection, monitoring and enforcement to protect Alberta’s water, land and air.”

This week’s decision to revisit the Alberta Energy Regulator’s mandate represents that focus. The press secretary for Minister of Environment Shannon Phillips didn’t respond to multiple requests for an interview on the subject.

International Experts to Evaluate Oilsands Monitoring

An international panel composed of six scientists will evaluate the performance of the new monitoring system. It plans to “evaluate the extent to which the implementation of the Joint Canada-Alberta Oil Sands Monitoring (JOSM) has improved the scientific integrity of environmental monitoring in the oil sands.”

The panel will deliver its report this fall, which will “help determine the next steps on the oilsands monitoring design and implementation.”

Olszynski emphasizes the uniqueness of AEMERA

“It’s an experiment, an innovative one, an important one,” he says.

Yet there’s much more to be done: stable funding must be solidified, the line between cabinet and organization must be clarified and the data must be analyzed and reported on in a way that regular Albertans can understand. AEMERA also has to expand its monitoring province-wide to fulfill its mandate.

“AEMERA needs to step out and demonstrate that they’re acting in the public interest,” Read says. “We want to see a demonstration of AEMERA actively taking and delivering that unbiased information to the government and providing a perspective on the current state of the environment.”

* Clarification Notice: This article originally stated that AEMERA is funded 100 per cent by industry. While AEMERA gets the bulk of its funding from industry, the agency also receives government funding for general operations and monitoring, evaluation and reporting activities in other areas of the province

Image: Kris Krug via Flickr

The Narwhal’s reporters are telling environment stories you won’t read about anywhere else. Stay in the loop by signing up for our free weekly dose of independent journalism.

“We will continue to have a strong economy while meeting the 2020 [climate] targets … and we will meet those.”

It was a bewildering statement, like something out of a poorly scripted political drama. The idea that within the next five years, Alberta — the province responsible for over 35 per cent of the country’s greenhouse gas emissions in 2012 — would meet its emissions targets would be laughable if it weren’t so pathetic.

But that’s what was said.

And by Diana McQueen, a former minister of environment, no less. By the very person who’s now leading the revision of the province’s oft-delayed climate change framework.

Back in 2008, the Alberta government, then headed by Progressive Conservative leader Ed Stelmach, brought forward a fairly weighty climate change strategy. Goals were set, policies outlined.

“Our targets,” wrote Stelmach, “are based on sound research not wishful thinking.”

The strategy promised that by 2020, the province’s annual emissions would fall by 50 megatonnes below “business-as-usual” numbers — in 2008, that number was  232 megatonnes per year.

But according to Environment Canada’s most recent projections for emissions, Alberta’s annual output will instead grow to 287 megatonnes a year — an overall increase of 55 megatonnes, which means that the target (a 12 per cent increase from the 2005 number) will be missed by a full 27 Mt.

Removing bitumen from the oilsands will account for a great majority of that increase, the report noted. The resulting emissions from that process will practically wipe out all the reductions in Canadian emissions accomplished by retiring coal-fired power stations.

In other words, unless emissions from the Alberta oilsands are dramatically tempered in the next five years, the bitumen extraction industry will come close to single-handedly undoing all the hard work done by the rest of the country to rein in greenhouse gas emissions.

In the next five years, Ontario is projected to reduce its emissions by 37 megatonnes, Nova Scotia by eight, Quebec by six.

Alberta could wipe out all of that (and New Brunswick’s contributions while we’re at it).

But McQueen asserts that Alberta will live up to its goals.

McQueen’s Troubling Climate History

It’s not the first time McQueen, the former mayor of Drayton Valley, has made statements that were out of touch with reality.  

In 2011, when McQueen was environment minister, she denounced Kyoto because it “didn’t work for Canada without all the large emitters at the table.”

Then in 2013, McQueen told a Belgian news agency that the province had “taken some very strong movements … with regard to monitoring.”

But the Alberta Environmental Monitoring, Evaluation and Reporting Agency (thankfully reducible to the easy acronym of AEMERA), designed under McQueen’s watch, has been roundly criticized as a failure.

Alberta’s auditor general, Merwan Saher, condemned the agency’s work in his October 2014 report, noting the organization’s report for 2012-2013 took an egregious length of time to be made public. Saher said the report “lacked clarity and key information and contained inaccuracies” and that there was little actual information on the implementation of the monitoring program.

Now that Prentice has slashed Saher’s budget by a cool half-million, we can expect less review of the agency’s shortcomings.  

The agency serves as the primary body to oversee the responsibilities suggested in its title and yet the chair of the board is Lorne Taylor, former environment minister under Ralph Klein, and a serious hater of Kyoto. He gets paid $50,000 a year for that job, which requires a once-a-month, six-hour meeting.

On a side note: AEMERA is now looking for a new chief executive officer! Apply today. Warning: Might be a stressful gig.

Alberta’s False Climate Starts

Other nonstarters have plagued the governing party on its road to meeting 2020 targets.

In April 2013, then-premier Alison Redford hinted at an augmented carbon levy. The Specialized Gas Emitters Regulation (SGER), which has remained untouched in specifics since its inauguration in 2007, charges large emitters (those who emit more than 100,000 tonnes a year) a mere $15 for 12 per cent of all total emissions.

Definitely not a carbon tax. But it’s something, right?

Specifically, Redford briefly proposed a 40/40 framework as an addition of sorts to the regulation: that is, $40 would be charged for 40 per cent of emissions. Not at all in the realm suggested by the Pembina Institute – which recommended a legitimate carbon tax between the range of $100 and $150 per tonne — but again, an improvement! Unfortunately, that concept was quickly forgotten.

But none of the aforementioned examples – the monitoring agency or increased carbon levy – come close to the dashed promises of carbon capture and storage (CCS).

CCS was the foundational element of Alberta’s 2008 climate plan. The province committed $2 billion to the controversial technology.

Interestingly, now-premier Jim Prentice, called CCS a “science experiment” during his campaign for party leader but has since gone on to describe the technology as “game-changing” during a pro-Keystone XL pipeline tour in Washington, D.C.

Prentice did not mention that the remaining $700 million allocated to CCS advancement would be diverted for other purposes.

The abandonment of CCS leaves Alberta with effectively no plan to reduce per-barrel emissions from the oilsands, which have been on the rise since 2011 according to the Canadian Association for Petroleum Producers (CAPP). 

Which brings us back to McQueen.

She stated — as a public servant presumably expected to tell the truth to constituents — that the province she represents will achieve the respectable emissions reductions by 2020.

In reality, the oil and gas sector has increased emissions by more than 100 per cent in the opposite direction. And no one, including McQueen, seems to have any idea about how to turn that around. 

Image Credit: Diana McQueen via Twitter

The Narwhal’s reporters are telling environment stories you won’t read about anywhere else. Stay in the loop by signing up for our free weekly dose of independent journalism.