Three Canadian oilpatch giants say they had nothing to do with a campaign to weaken car emissions rules backed by a U.S. trade group to which they belong.
In comments to National Observer, officials from Suncor, Husky and Cenovus distanced themselves from recent findings by investigations at the New York Times and ProPublica that revealed how a U.S.association representing oil refiners, the American Fuel and Petrochemical Manufacturers (AFPM), was behind an effort last year to weaken vehicle standards.
A Suncor executive also sits on the board of directors of AFPM — an organization which says it’s on the lookout for environmental “
overregulation” and which was involved in a
2016 battle against a crackdown on U.S. power plant pollution. Canadian oil and gas producer Irving Oil is also a member, as are other multinational companies with Canadian interests, including Exxon and Chevron.
Andrew Gage, staff lawyer at Vancouver-based West Coast Environmental Law, argued that their membership in the group showed how Canadian industry was complicit in actions that delay tackling climate change.
"These types of industry-led attacks on climate policy emphasize how far the oil and gas industry will go to keep making profits, while the rest of us pay the price of climate change,” said Gage. “That's true not only for the U.S. fossil fuel industry, but industry players in Canada and around the world."
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