Three years after the passage of the Environmental Goals and Sustainable Prosperity Act and an agreement to meet the national standard for mercury emissions from coal-fired power plants, the mercurial NDP government has turned on a dime.
The "dime" was the higher power rates forecasted by Nova Scotia Power to offset the cost of burning cleaner fuel to comply with the law.
After meeting privately this month with business, community, environmental and university groups, government determined the public would happily accept higher levels of the neuro-poison for several more years in exchange for lower power bills next year.
By pushing the agreed mercury cap back four years to 2014 — beyond the next election — the NDP judged it could avert the backlash that would have been triggered by steep power rate hikes.
Nova Scotia Power was seeking rate increases of 12 per cent for residential customers and 18 per cent for industrial users.
In its defence, the NDP has set an even lower cap on mercury emissions for 2020, to compensate for breaking its word on the 2010 cap.
The reason for the mercury cap, set by Canada and agreed to by Nova Scotia, is that coal-fired power plants are a leading contributor to mercury levels in Canada.
Whether the power utility could have achieved the mercury reductions for less money remains an unan-swered question because the premier intervened before the utility’s case could be examined by the Nova Scotia Utility and Review Board in the fall.
The rapid turnaround on this issue, following pressure from the business community, stands in contrast with the widespread business support for the proposed biomass joint venture between Nova Scotia Power and NewPage Port Hawkesbury Ltd.
That project has received resounding support from regional business groups and development agencies.
The biomass project is being put forward so the utility can meet another set of legislated targets, for renewable energy.
As an industrial expansion, the biomass project offers its own rewards, in the forms of jobs and investment.
In contrast, the mercury caps appear to come with an unpalatable cost, with no economic sweetener to make the medicine go down.
It was probably a mistake to create the environmental legislation in such a way that it could be broken down into popular and less popular parts by the utility.
For example, the latest conservation measures were approved with little controversy, whereas the mercury-reduction commitments were couched within a broader rate proposal that spooked business and forced government to change its mind.
The utility may have anticipated that government would fail this test of nerves.
Many Nova Scotians will be relieved that government did change its mind on the mercury cap, but cherry-picking environmental commitments sets a bad precedent. So does changing the law on the basis of backroom discussions. That leaves the impression that people who supported the law have been hoodwinked.
Instead of playing off the environment against economics, which is what happened this week, government and business should discover how environmental health can generate economic wealth.
Rachel Brighton is the publisher of the regional magazine Coastlands and a former business editor and journalist.
No comments:
Post a Comment