Law Times

Page 10 November 23, 2015 • Law Times www.lawtimesnews.com FOCUS Greenhouse gas regulations Ontario proposes changes to emissions reporting rules BY YAMRI TADDESE Law Times ompanies should start to closely monitor their car- bon footprint as Ontario proposes to amend its regula- tions around reporting green- house gas emissions, according to an environmental lawyer. Under the current guide- lines, companies that emit at least 25,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide or the equivalent per year must report their emis- sions data to the government. But the proposed change to the Environmental Protection Act would bring that threshold to 10,000 tonnes. "Companies and facilities that are covered by the regula- tion need to be aware of [the proposed change] because now the threshold is quite a bit low- er," says McCarthy Tétrault LLP environmental lawyer Selina Lee-Andersen. "If they weren't caught by it before, they may be caught by it now, so it's sort of important for companies and organizations to kind of monitor their greenhouse emissions," she adds. The main driver of the chang- es to the regulation is Ontario's proposed cap-and-trade system, says Lee-Andersen, referring to Premier Kathleen Wynne's plan to align Ontario with Quebec and California's arrangement for controlling emissions. "They're in the process at the moment of finalizing all the reg- ulations, so this is really part of the efforts to implement cap and trade and to also align it with the reporting requirements that are in Quebec and California," says Lee- Andersen, adding the proposed change to the emissions reporting guidelines is "a good thing." The government is also pro- posing to introduce new cat- egories of sources for which companies must report their emissions. They include elec- tricity importers, distributors of natural gas, petroleum product suppliers, electricity transmis- sion and distribution facilities, and magnesium producers. In addition, the government will require reports on emissions coming from mobile equip- ment usage at facilities as well as equipment used for natural gas transmission and distribution. The lower threshold for re- porting emissions, in addition to the new sources that would be subject to reporting, will mean an increase in the amount of emissions data the province receives, says Lee-Andersen. It's "a good way for the prov- ince to kind of assess more accu- rately which emissions [are com- ing] from which sectors, where all the sources are," she adds. "That will enable them to de- sign a smarter system that will be more accurate. The more infor- mation you have, the better deci- sions you can make around that. I think, overall, it's a good thing." Lorne O'Reilly, senior lawyer at Dow Chemical Canada ULC, says his company is fortunate not to have to worry about the pro- posed change as its operations are well below the 10,000-tonne reporting threshold. His company will therefore offer no opinion on the proposed changes, says O'Reilly, who nev- ertheless has some personal con- cerns. "I personally believe that Ontario has self-inf licted finan- cial constraints and, although I agree with a polluter-pay princi- ple and stringent environmental management, the government consistently makes poor com- mercial decisions and insists on overregulating and targeting the businesses that made Ontario an industrial centre . . . possibly to its detriment." Lee-Andersen says that from her perspective, the proposed changes aren't an effort to pe- nalize industries. "Of course, there are penalties for non-compliance just because you need those mechanisms in place to make sure companies are in compliance with the regula- tions, but [the need for] informa- tion forms the basis for all of the other actions," she says. The proposal doesn't set out a specific penalty for non-com- pliance. "The ministry is review- ing and comparing the potential penalties under Ontario's Envi- ronmental Protection Act with those available under Quebec's legislation for cap and trade," the Ministry of the Environment said in the proposal. "The ministry will consider the use of monetary penalties for non-compliance with reporting requirements of greenhouse gas emissions as part of any proposal for a cap and trade program." Given that the rollout of the cap-and-trade system is still in its very early days, it's hard to say if there will be a lot of resis- tance from companies, says Lee- Andersen. "There's increasing calls for action on climate change and a lot of these companies have been anticipating some kind of cap-and-trade system or car- bon tax or some form of pricing system, so it's not so much as re- sistance as it's trying to adapt to it and trying to ensure that the government makes smart deci- sions about how it impacts local industries," she adds. If companies report emis- sions above 25,000 tonnes, the government will require inde- pendent audits or verifications as is currently the case. In cal- culating emissions for the pur- poses of the reporting thresh- old, companies would be able to deduct from the total any emis- sions from the combustion of biomass. LT 2015 BRITISH COLUMBIA LEGAL TELEPHONE DIRECTORY THIS IS YOUR LEGAL COMMUNITY. STAY CONNECTED. INCLUDES BRITISH COLUMBIA, NORTHWEST TERRITORIES, NUNAVUT AND YUKON. British Columbia's vast legal community is right at your fingertips with the 2015 British Columbia Legal Telephone Directory. 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Presented by Carswell Media,a Thomson Reuters business Untitled-1 1 2015-10-15 12:47 PM C The proposed reporting changes are part of the province's efforts to launch a cap-and- trade system, says Selina Lee Andersen.

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