Alberta's provincial cabinet has agreed in principle on a plan that would ultimately transfer responsibility for regulating entire areas of natural resources development in Alberta to one government department or agency.

Under the province's current system, several government departments and agencies are involved in regulating everything from energy and forestry developments to water use and public land management.

The "single-regulator" plan, based on an internal government document written by Vance MacNichol, a consultant and former deputy minister of Alberta Environment, would make one government or agency responsible for specific areas of development affecting the land, water or air.

Environmentalists and opposition political parties fear the plan, which cabinet has approved in principle to be implemented in phases, will lead to increased development and less protection of the environment.

But Alberta Environment says the whole idea behind the single-regulator approach is to enhance environmental protection, not weaken it.

"It does not, in any way, shape or form, jeopardize the integrity of the (environmental protection) process," said Val Mellesmoen, a spokesperson for the department.

Mellesmoen said that although the Department of Energy is leading the plan for administrative purposes, it was Alberta Environment that initiated a report by MacNichol that led to his recommendation to move to a single-regulator system.

"We wanted to be able to streamline the process so that our Environment staff could spend less time doing administrative work . . . and actually deal with any kinds of issues or get out and educate people so that we prevent issues," Mellesmoen said.

But environmentalists say they suspect the real drivers behind the plan are the oil and gas industry and the Energy Department.

Environmentalist Martha Kostuch, a veterinarian in Rocky Mountain House, says government has been working on the plan for almost two years behind closed doors, with virtually no public input or consultation.

Alberta Environment is the only department that has a specific mandate to protect the environment, she noted.

Other departments and agencies involved in the plan - Energy, Sustainable Resource Development and the Energy and Utilities Board (EUB) - all are focused on developing the province's resources, Kostuch said. "Their mandate is not environmental protection." Myles Kitagawa, associate director of the Edmonton-based Toxics Watch Society, says he's worried a single-regulator approach will marginalize Alberta Environment's regulatory authority.

"There's no reason to have confidence that the resource-extracting departments and ministries will do an effective job at representing the environmental interest," Kitagawa said.

The Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers (CAPP) has been lobbying the government for several years to move to a more streamlined and efficient 'one-window' approach to regulation while still ensuring the environment is protected.

But David Pryce, vice-president of Western Canada operations at CAPP, says Alberta Environment and other departments will still be responsible, in consultation with the public and affected stakeholders, for setting environmental policies and standards.

All a single regulator will do, such as the EUB in the area of energy, is deliver those policies and standards, he said.

Alberta Environment would still set air emission standards for sour gas plants, for example, but the EUB would be the sole agency responsible for monitoring and enforcing those standards, Pryce said.

"The EUB is already our primary regulator, so there's logic to moving in that direction further because they know our business best." Moving to such a system would give the industry one place to go for development approvals, as opposed to having to work with several different departments and agencies that sometimes have conflicting views, Pryce said.

MacNichol, in his December 2002 report to government, concluded that the current regulatory system isn't working well.

He reviewed the policies, legislation and information bases that the departments of Energy, Environment and Sustainable Resource Development as well as the EUB use to regulate resource development and protect the environment.

Including the three core departments and the EUB, at least seven different departments or agencies can get involved in doing the job, his report says.

In some cases, government policies and rules overlap, duplicate or conflict with each other.

This results in approvals for development taking much longer than they should, MacNichol said.

Even when something is approved, it could be subject to various appeal processes within one or more departments and to regulation and enforcement by several different departments or agencies, he said.

"Most resource and environmental regulatory policy is currently developed within individual (departments), limiting the ability to address competing demand for development on the same resource," MacNichol's report says.

The complex and inefficient system also makes it more difficult for the public to find out about proposed developments and raise concerns, he said.

MacNichol recommended that all departments and agencies work together to create policies and set standards, but that the government change the regulatory delivery system and "assign the responsibility, authority and accountability for the full lifecycle of each natural resource project/activity to a single regulator." The EUB should have total responsibility for regulating all energy and minerals, including oil and gas, oilsands, coal and power plants, he recommended. Sustainable Resource Development would be in charge of public land management and use, and timber harvesting.

Alberta Environment would be the regulator for the delivery of water and looking after waste management and petrochemical plants.

The goal is to make the province's regulatory system for resource development more clear, efficient and certain for industry, and more open and accessible to the public, MacNichol said.

But environmentalists say they're concerned about the EUB, which receives about 60 per cent of its funding from industry, having sole responsibility for regulating projects such as sour gas plants, oilsands mines and coal-fired power plants from "cradle to grave." Kostuch said that under the single-regulator system, the EUB would be responsible for regulating virtually all energy development and the public would be able to appeal decisions only to the EUB. Other existing avenues of appeal, such as to the Alberta Environmental Appeal Board, wouldn't be available.

"My biggest fear is that things will be even worse than they are now," Kostuch said. "Environmental protection will lose out." Alberta Environment's Mellesmoen says that although cabinet has approved in principle to implement the plan in stages, the first step will be to integrate all the policies, rules and databases used by different departments and agencies.

If that first step isn't successful, the plan will be reconsidered, she said. Environment Minister Lorne Taylor has also made it clear to his cabinet colleagues that moving to a single-regulator system doesn't mean the Environment Department will turn over its responsibility for environmental protection to other departments and agencies, Mellesmoen said.

Taylor, who didn't run in the Nov. 22 election, has said publicly that the EUB, largely because of its industry funding, would be in a potential conflict of interest if it took on the job of environmental protection.

Kostuch said the government should open up consultation on the entire single-regulator concept to the public before going ahead with any part of it.

Kitagawa agreed, saying: "I think the government should just put the brakes on it and do a good-faith public review." This review should include "a credible rationale for how the environmental protection interest is going to be res- pected and incorporated into whatever they do," Kitagawa said.

(Mark Lowey can be reached at mark@businessedge.ca)