One of British Columbia’s most effective climate regulations is at risk.

Even though fuel providers make more profit off drivers in B.C. than anywhere else in Canada, industry is requesting the province review low-carbon fuel standards, which require vehicle fuels to become cleaner.

As energy experts recently wrote in an op-ed for the Vancouver Sun, B.C.’s policy has been effective at cutting greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from vehicles without people even noticing a change in their lifestyle.

Most British Columbians don’t even realize their fuel is becoming cleaner. By all accounts, the clean fuel rules have been a quiet success story.

And yet, those rules have come under threat.

Fuel providers in B.C. are asking the provincial government to review its ‘renewable and low-carbon fuel regulations.’

According to John Axsen, professor of sustainable energy at Simon Fraser University, some fuel providers “want the B.C. government to weaken [the policy].”

But fully one-quarter of B.C.’s recent success at reducing climate pollution is due to ramping up the use of low-carbon fuels.

In fact, each year low carbon fuels have kept roughly 900 kilotonnes of carbon emissions from entering the atmosphere. This has reduced the province’s GHG impact by the equivalent of 190,499 passenger vehicles or all passenger vehicles in the city of Vancouver.

Yet, certain fuel providers claim the rules are uneconomic and are requesting the provincial government review the low-carbon policy.

B.C. pays more for fuel than anywhere else in Canada

Critics have been quick to point out the oil and gas industry is especially profitable in British Columbia:

As the chart above demonstrates, the petroleum industry makes more profit from Vancouver drivers than drivers in any other city in Canada — almost double the national average.

B.C. consumers would have saved $905 million since 2010 if oil companies in B.C. had made the Canadian average profit (for both refining and selling gasoline and diesel) according to data gathered from Statistics Canada.

Despite gaining nearly a billion dollars since 2010 in “extra” profit in B.C., industry is still lobbying against B.C.’s clean fuel rules.

According to Matt Horne, B.C. associate regional director with the Pembina Institute, a clean energy consulting and advocacy group, the province held a workshop with industry representatives around one year ago to discuss the fuel regulations.

“There were lots of concerns expressed that companies weren’t able to comply with the policy,” he said.

“To the extent I’ve looked at it, the concern as I understand it is that it’s not economic to comply with the policy.”

Horne says representatives with the province and with low-carbon fuel providers have argued the policy is in fact economic and works well as it’s intended: as a long-term strategy.

“This policy gives B.C. the ability to plan going forward. It’s a long-term policy, it has a ten-year time stamp and it has a lot of flexibility,” Horne said.

“There are lots of ways to comply with the policy as long as companies get their carbon down.”

He added B.C. has committed to the Pacific Coast Action Plan on Climate and Energy.

“The province made a pretty clear commitment to Washington, Oregon and California that it’s going to stay committed to its low-carbon commitment and I think it will stick to that.”

“I think Washington, Oregon and California are expecting the same,” he said.

Industry pushback

According to B.C.’s Ministry of Energy and Mines spokesperson David Haslam, “petroleum suppliers have expressed concerns regarding their ability to comply with existing standards given options currently available.”

Haslam told DeSmog Canada the review is intended to “identify how to best enable and support compliance.”

”This past spring, the province conducted a thorough consultation process to review the ability of fuel suppliers to comply with existing standards,” Haslam said, “given the options currently available for generating low-carbon fuel credits.”

He said the province will release a report and recommendations based on consultation “shortly.”

Industry can’t afford clean fuels?

The oil and gas industry in B.C. is suggesting it cannot afford low-carbon fuel rules or that such rules are unrealistic, following a pattern of pushback already seen in both Oregon and California.

In fact both the American Petroleum Institute (API) and the American Fuel and Petrochemical Manufacturers (AFPM) launched legal challenges against the U.S. Renewable Fuel Standard in 2012, calling renewables “phantom fuels.”

The API even sued the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency over a minimum renewable fuel requirement in the U.S. transportation fuel supply.

Canadian oil industry groups have also pushed back against mandatory low-carbon and renewable fuel requirements. In 2011, the Canadian Petroleum Products Institute (CPPI) criticized the federal government’s biodiesel requirements as ‘unfeasible.’

The Canadian Fuels Association maintains “new fuel standards and specifications should be based on sound science and credible cost-benefit analyses,” indicating a strong concern with profitability for industry. When it comes to renewable fuels such as biodiesel, they state “wishful thinking will not get us there.”

It’s worth noting a full 75 per cent of the emissions avoided in B.C. due to the fuel standards resulted from the use of biofuels.

Member companies of the Canadian Fuels Association, which include Husky Energy, Imperial Oil, Shell and Chevron, overlap with both the API and AFPM, which are active in fighting low carbon and renewable fuel standards in the U.S.

Oil industry controls access to markets

Only five companies control 85 per cent of crude refining capacity in Canada. Those companies include Suncor, Imperial Oil, Irving and Shell.

University of Alberta economist Andrew Leach summarizes the ways to deal with this “oil-igopoly:”

“If you want to decrease refinery margins, the only guaranteed ways to do it are by increasing the elasticity of gasoline demand through more public transit, denser communities, more flexible work environments, or by deploying alternative energy sources for means of transportation.”

This last point, “deploying alternative energy sources for … transportation,” is exactly the purpose of the clean fuel rules that are now under threat.

This summer, the B.C. government announced the province met its 2012 climate targets, reducing greenhouse gas pollution even as the economy grew — challenging claims that putting a price on carbon weakens the economy.

Overwhelming public support for clean fuels, climate action in B.C.

Luckily in B.C., good economic management and public opinion agree.

Fully 88 per cent of British Columbians support the clean fuel rule and in a succession of recent polls, a strong majority of British Columbians think hitting the province’s GHG targets is a priority and we should transition off fossil fuels to clean sources of energy.

As for the provincial government itself, not only has B.C. brought in a number of regulations to reduce the province’s contribution to climate change since 2007, it also remains committed to the western states to align carbon pricing efforts and deepen actions to address climate change, including low-carbon fuel standards.

The oil and gas industry has successfully requested the province review the low-carbon fuel standards and elected officials are scheduled to consider the review and recommendations this fall.

Industry is often successful at forcing quiet ‘technical’ changes to important regulations that weaken strong policy.

If B.C. wants to stand behind its climate commitments, it will also have to stand behind its clean fuel regulations.

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.

When the Suncor Energy Inc. plant in Port Moody, BC, spilled 225 barrels of R100 biodiesel fuel, Suncor spokespeople couldn’t answer what was arguably the most pressing question: how will the spill affect the environment? The substance spilled was odourless and colourless, and most of it stayed on land at the Suncor plant while a small amount hit the waters of the Burrard Inlet.

While emissions from biofuels may do less harm to the environment than those of conventional fuels, executive director of BC Sustainable Energy Association Nigel Protter cautions against jumping to the conclusion that biofuels are safer because it’s biodegradable. Just because a substance may be less toxic than conventional fuel, he says, doesn’t mean it should be treated as if it’s harmless.

“The carbon neutral footprint doesn’t mean the substance itself doesn’t have an impact on the things with which it comes in contact.”

The logic behind biofuels, Protter said, is that instead of burning carbon that has been tucked deep underground for millions of years—fossil fuels or what Protter refers to as epochal carbon—it burns matter whose carbon dioxide would have be released anyway when that organism died.

“Fuel burning in an engine is just a very rapid form of the same things that happens when any carbon-based biological creature or plant decomposes,” he said. Whether it’s a blade of grass that lasts a year or a tree that lasts a hundreds or more, eventually those things will release carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.

“That carbon is going in and out of the biosphere constantly,” Protter said, but added that the jury is still out on the long-term viability of biofuels, and in some cases, the evidence comes down against it.

The spill in Port Moody was small in the grand scheme of oil spills, but there are other, less direct environmental considerations to make when it comes to evaluating biofuels. Much of it is made from palm oil, a material that requires the clearing of large swaths of rainforest as well as the use of land that would otherwise be available for growing food, particularly in developing countries.

Kevin Ganshorn, a biologist with Ecofish Research Ltd., said there’s a reason the answer to question of environmental impact is hard to come by. It doesn’t fully exist yet. He said it’s extremely common for chemicals to be introduced into daily life with little assurance they’re safe for the environment.

“Every year there are hundreds if not thousands of new chemicals synthesized and being used for various applications with very little study done on the toxicity of the materials.” He said studies are typically far from comprehensive in scope.

“They’re generally limited to laboratory studies with one or two species and there are a lot of potential problems with that,” he said. Different species respond in different ways substances, and the specific ecosystems in which those substances appear also have an impact. “The toxicity of chemicals are often mediated by the condition under which animal or wildlife are exposed to it,” he said. “Local chemistry may reduce the toxic effect and sometimes it can increase it.”

He said that, for most chemicals, we generally know very little about the toxicity and yet continue to use them. The reasons for this gap in knowledge are the usual suspects and include time, money and the difficulty of tests.

“To be able to infer what will happen in the environment is something incredibly difficult to do and incredibly difficult to monitor,” he said. As a result, studies are generally limited as scientist work toward better ways of predicting toxicity in the environment.

“The original model they used was developed 20 years ago and there’s still debate about how effective it is,” Granshorn said, adding that he has been involved in reviewing an assessment model that could be used to test for toxicity associated with the Enbridge Northern Gateway Pipeline project.

He said it’s also common for the public at large to make assumptions about the safety of certain chemicals thanks to the connotations of certain buzzwords.

“Many products out there have bio or eco attached to their marketing, and it doesn’t necessarily mean it’s something that will not have any harmful effects.” Consumers are learning to be skeptical of companies’ attempts at green washing household products like dish soap and printer paper. Why should people be any less critical of the labels on products used to make the big things run?

He echoed Protter’s sentiments regarding the word biodegradable and the false sense of security it can impart.

“Even if it is biodegradable, if it’s biodegradable and highly toxic, the biodegradable aspect becomes somewhat less relevant if there’s a large spill.”

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.