Smith pressed on whether carbon tax could stall pipeline plan
Episode Stats
Summary
In this episode of the podcast, we talk with Alberta s premier, Rachel Notley, about the proposed carbon tax on industrial emitters and the impact it could have on the proposed Keystone XL pipeline project. We also hear from Alberta s environment minister, David Winnick, who says the carbon tax is not a retail carbon tax, and why he thinks it's a good idea.
Transcript
00:00:02.620
Premier, do you think the carbon tax will make it harder to find a private proponent for the pipeline?
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Well, everybody, I guess, maybe I should clarify, because people were accustomed to the retail carbon tax.
00:00:17.460
You will not see this on your diesel or gasoline or any of your fill-up bills.
00:00:24.060
That the federal government got rid of with a lot of pressure from us, other provinces,
00:00:28.080
and of course, the federal conservatives. But this is an industrial price that has
00:00:34.080
been on industrial emissions since 2007. We actually were the first ones to put it in place.
00:00:40.280
It got what we went to court and the court determined that the federal government has
00:00:44.840
the right to set a floor price. That's part of the overlapping jurisdiction that we have.
00:00:49.080
But it does apply to those facilities that are emitting more than 100,000 tons of emissions
00:00:55.220
per year. So just keep in mind, that's where we believe we can make the biggest impact on reducing
00:01:00.780
emissions, and also the biggest impact on adopting new technology. And what we found is that this
00:01:06.760
mechanism where we reward those companies who do best available technology, and we have companies
00:01:12.200
who are lagging behind paying, it has led to an incredible amount of innovation. That's why we've
00:01:17.800
kept it for the past 20 years. So is it going to be too high? Well, I can tell you 170 by 2030 was
00:01:23.880
way too high, which is why we froze it this year. And we'll do some more industry consultation.
00:01:29.760
But the early feedback we've got from the industry is that they believe that this slower
00:01:34.540
ramp up is going to be manageable for the companies that are going to be exposed to it.