{"id":186531,"date":"2018-10-22T23:56:29","date_gmt":"2018-10-23T03:56:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=186531"},"modified":"2018-10-22T23:56:29","modified_gmt":"2018-10-23T03:56:29","slug":"neb-agrees-to-consider-lng-canada-pipeline-jurisdictional-challenge","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2018\/10\/22\/neb-agrees-to-consider-lng-canada-pipeline-jurisdictional-challenge\/","title":{"rendered":"NEB agrees to consider LNG Canada pipeline jurisdictional challenge"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>
LNG\u00a0Canada\u00a0announced earlier this month that it was going ahead with a plant in Kitimat on B.C.’s coast with the pipeline delivering natural gas from the northeast corner of the province. (File Photo<\/a>: @lngcanada\/Twitter<\/a>)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The National Energy Board says it will consider a jurisdictional challenge of a pipeline approval that is a key component in a recently sanctioned $40-billion liquefied natural gas export facility in British Columbia.<\/p>\n

The federal regulator says it will accept submissions until next Monday from challenger Mike Sawyer, the provincial and federal governments, and other parties on whether the 670-kilometre pipeline should be considered a federal project.<\/p>\n

If it is, it will require National Energy Board approval to proceed, making approval of the Coastal GasLink Pipeline Ltd. project from the British Columbia Oil and Gas Commission insufficient.<\/p>\n

LNG\u00a0Canada\u00a0announced earlier this month that it was going ahead with a plant in Kitimat on B.C.’s coast with the pipeline delivering natural gas from the northeast corner of the province.<\/p>\n

The energy board says Sawyer’s jurisdictional challenge was received in July, comment was then provided by Coastal (a subsidiary of TransCanada Corp.), and Sawyer was allowed to reply.<\/p>\n

It says Sawyer argues that because TransCanada operates the pipeline and the connected Nova Gas Transmission Ltd. system together, they are in fact a single federal undertaking.<\/p>\n

In reply, according to the NEB, Coastal accuses Sawyer of pursuing a \u201cvexatious\u201d litigation designed to frustrate upstream natural gas development in B.C., further charging it’s not a coincidence that his complaint was made as the project was finally proceeding, not years ago when it was approved.<\/p>\n

LNG\u00a0Canada’s five partners \u2013 Royal Dutch Shell, Mitsubishi Corp., Malaysian-owned Petronas, PetroChina Co. and Korean Gas Corp. \u2013 had delayed the final investment decision on the project in 2016, citing a drop in natural gas prices.<\/p>\n

Sawyer could not be reached for comment, but his lawyer said the board’s decision is \u201ca major step forward.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThere’s a real kind of rule of law issue here as to whether a pipeline like this really is in federal jurisdiction under the constitution versus whether it’s under provincial jurisdiction,\u201d said Bill Andrews.<\/p>\n

He said Sawyer pursued similar legal avenues against the former Pacific Northwest LNG project near Prince Rupert, which was shelved last year by Malaysian state-owned energy giant Petronas. His case ended when the project was stopped, said Andrews.<\/p>\n

Coastal GasLink Pipeline, LNG\u00a0Canada\u00a0and the provincial Energy Ministry could not immediately be reached for comment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The National Energy Board says it will consider a jurisdictional challenge of a pipeline approval that is a key component …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":44,"featured_media":186539,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18,16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-186531","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news-ca","category-news","mauthors-dan-healing","mauthors-dirk-meissner","mauthors-the-canadian-press"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/186531","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/44"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=186531"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/186531\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/186539"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=186531"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=186531"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=186531"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}