The Energy East pipeline review application is at an end. TransCanada wrote to the National Energy Board (NEB) on October 5, 2017 formally withdrawing its applications for the Energy East Project, Asset Transfer (Energy East) and Eastern Mainline Project (EMP) (collectively, the Projects) from the NEB review process.

The decision comes hard on the heels of TransCanada’s request for the Board to grant it a further 30 days to review the Board’s final List of Issues and Environmental Assessment Factors and the implications for the projects. Those factors included a review of upstream and downstream greenhouse gas emissions

TransCanada bases its decision on “the existing and likely future delays resulting from the regulatory process, the associated cost implications and the increasingly challenging issues and obstacles facing the Projects” but  it seems likely that business issues such as  overcapacity and world oil prices and supply may have prevailed here.

Opponents of the projects, including the many Indigenous intervenors,  welcomed the move but the application may see the light of day again if other pipeline projects currently in play do not go ahead.

To read TransCanada’s letter to the NEB, click here

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Manning Environmental Law is a Canadian law firm based in Toronto, Ontario. Our practice is focussed on environmental law, energy law and aboriginal law. 

Paul Manning is a certified specialist in environmental law. He has been named as one of the World’s Leading Environmental Lawyers and one of the World’s Leading Climate Change Lawyers by Who’s Who Legal.

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