Low Carbon Fuel Standard – Air Resources Board Meeting

This document contains a transcript of the testimony heard by the California Air Resources Board on the proposed low carbon fuel standard.

Among the presenters were Rick Hyndman (Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers – see page 142), Marc LePage (Consul General – see page 147), and Christopher Holly (Alberta Energy – see page 199).

The close relationship between the oil industry and the Alberta government is hinted at when Rick Hyndman refers to the as « my colleagues in the Alberta government. »

There is also a very interesting discussion among the Board Members, beginning on page 314. In response to the Canadians’ concerns, Deputy Executive Officer Scheible said « Well, I think it’s basically a challenge. I mean, we’ve heard testimony and gotten input how they are going to develop this resource, responsibly and caputre the emissions, get the emission low. And basically we’ve set up a program where [we] say make it as clean as the conventional basket of petroleum and it comes into the program, but you have to show how you do that. That’s not a plan on paper to investigate carbon capture and sequestration. That’s a plan that’s demonstrated and have it working, » (p. 315).

He goes on to say « unless they take extraordinary efforts to extract that very carefully and minimize the carbon emissions, that it will be a high-carbon source of petroleum, and we will have actually more carbon in our transportation system if we use that here rather than less, » (p. 317).