Canada cuts emergency budget for pipeline spills

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Canada’s government is planning to reduce the size of the emergency fund for pipeline operators which they may use in case of incidents such as spills, the Calgary Herald reports.

The reduction can be made within the framework of a new Pipeline Safety Act that has been discussed for more than a year already. According to Natural Resources Canada, the budget may be cut to a twice as less size – from the initially proposed 10 per cent to at least five per cent. When drawing the fund project, the officials took into consideration the cost of previous pipeline spills, especially two largest spills in Canada between 2007 and 2014 that cost $137 million and $42 million, respectively, to clean up.

A spokesperson for Natural Resources Canada, Danica Vaillancourt, stated that financial safeguards are not going to be weakened. The fund is treated as an addition to current requirements pipeline companies face.

"This is not a reduction in the size of financial requirements," Vaillancourt told the Calgary Herald. "In fact, these regulations would impose new financial requirements to ensure pipeline companies are financially prepared to cover the costs related to an incident."