Rubin-esque

I have a lot of sympathy for one of Jeff Rubin's core arguments - that high oil prices have been ignored when compared to the sub-prime mortgage mess when talking about the cause of the recent recession.

I even bought and read his best-selling book on this, and recommend it.

But, today Rubin misrepresents California's efforts to reduce the carbon content of fuels sold in that state, and by extension the whole rationale behind so-called 'low carbon fuel standards' everywhere. He characterizes California's push as a "ban" on tar sands oil in particular, when it is no such thing - it requires fuel sellers in California to reduce the overall carbon content of fuel sold there, and lets them do this by blending higher carbon options - like tar sands oil - with lower carbon options, or indeed by buying credits from lower carbon electricity sources feeding electric vehicles.

By doing this, California helps call the question of whether the tar sands industry and their Alberta and federal government boosters are actually serious about reducing the carbon content of tar sands oil, as they claim to be by directing billions of dollars of taxpayer money into carbon capture and storage, or whether this is ultimately a very expensive green washing exercise.

Indeed, documents we recently obtained under Access to Information indicate that the federal government knows the carbon content of tar sands oil is likely to go higher rather than lower, due to factors such as the shift to the more carbon intensive steam injection method, through having mined out the easiest to reach deposits, and through the likelihood that the Alberta government will allow the industry to burn much dirtier feed stocks than natural gas to generate its energy for production.

Those same documents also show our federal government lobbying the California government on low carbon fuel standard using tar sands industry-funded numbers that it knew to be "not transparent" and "out of date." These are our civil servants doing the industry's bidding using misleading information.

Ultimately, a low carbon fuel standard is akin to the consuming jurisdiction enacting a carbon tax if the producing jurisdiction doesn't do it - and do it at a level that actually reduces emisisons. This is exactly what is now unfolding between California and other jurisdictions interested in a robust response on the one hand, and the lame response we have so far seen from Alberta and the Canadian government on the other.

Matt Price
Policy Director
Environmental Defence