NEB serves industry, not the public

I've long been aware of the National Energy Board but never paid much attention to it. However, for my article Regulators throwing loaded dice, I had a look at backgrounds of the people involved in the NEB. I was immediately reminded of a quote from police psychologist Mike Webster used in June 2009 in the article State Sanctioned Violence. Here is the context and the quote:

One psychologist suggests that police violence is encouraged by expanded inventories of weapons and wider use of body armor and tactical assault training. The act of dressing in body armor and the discomfort of wearing it remind police officers of dangers they might face. They are encouraged to use violence by the anticipation of it. As Dr. Mike Webster said,

"When you think the only tool you have is a hammer, then the whole world begins looking like a nail."

The parallel is direct, I think. The NEB's objective is to promote transport and export of petroleum. For the most part, its members spent their adult lives facilitating the industry they now supervise. They are like armour clad persons carrying only a hammer.

Instead, the review agency should function like a jury, listening to arguments from experts, pro and con, with fairness and impartiality, laying aside all bias and prejudice. Where are the ordinary people, the social scientists, the environmentalists? Maintaining a National Energy Board almost entirely composed of professionals from the energy industry is like prisoners being told to manage the prisons and the parole board. Of course, they would run the system for the benefit of themselves and their associates.

Here is a repeat of the NEB member listing:

• Chair Gaétan Caron, a Quebec engineer who has been a career bureaucrat with the NEB;

• Vice Chair Sheila Leggett, a Harper appointee to the NEB, who is a graduate of Montreal's McGill University who previously worked as an Alberta consultant;

• Roland George, also a McGill graduate, worked throughout most of his career as senior principal of an international energy consulting firm;

• Kenneth Bateman is a Calgary based lawyer who was Vice President of a large Canadian energy company;

• Georgette Habib is an economist who came from the Alberta Energy Resources Conservation Board;

• Lyne Mercier is a former executive of Gaz Metro, which distributes natural gas in Quebec and owns a number of financial interests in transmission, storage, gas and other underground systems enterprises;

• David Hamilton, a temporary member of the NEB, is a career government bureaucrat whose appointment expires next year;

• Bob Vergette, another temporary NEB board member, is a pipeline engineer who has been active on many pipeline industry association initiatives;

• Hans Mathews a geologist with more than 25 years experience in resource management industries is another temporary board member.

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Please don't miss Andrew Nikiforuk's article at The Tyee. What the Keystone Rejection Really Reveals emphasizes the central point I make here:

"Canada's National Energy Board, a half-hearted regulator at best, rubber-stamped the [Keystone XL] pipeline several years ago. The board expressed no interest in how the pipeline might grow bitumen's ugly mining footprint and carbon liabilities. Nor did it want to know much about the impact of raw bitumen exports on Canadian refining jobs."