Energy policy
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Coal and coalbed methane get their own regulation. Green energy gets a token mention.
The Energy Plan is a 26 point document describing the BC government's "vision" for the role of energy in the province. "Energy" is mainly fossil fuels (natural gas, oil, coal) and electricity. And the primary role and objective for energy, is revenue generation.
BC Hydro, the BC Utilities Commission, the Oil and Gas Commission all use the Energy Plan as a touchstone, a guiding document.
The Energy Plan lays out the basis for the fiscal and regulatory regime that the government is implementing by way of slashing royalties, creating a multitude of writeoffs, even building access roads ("resource roads" the government calls them) into wilderness at public expense.
At the same time, the BC government is reducing environmental and health protections, "streamlining" permitting processes and implementing see-no-evil regulatory oversight.
A fiscal and regulatory regime supporting policy objectives is appropriate use of government authority. The energy policy objectives in BC should be for sustainable energy, sustainable land use, greenhouse gas reduction, and economic viability for BC's rural communities and First Nations.
Instead, the provincial government is focussed on fossil fuel exploitation and revenue production. This is an unsustainable, short term strategy both for energy generation, and revenue generation, because the fossil fuels will be exhausted within a very few years.
