by Andrew Stein February 20, 2013 vtdigger.org Governor Peter Shumlin says he doesn’ t want oil from Canadian tar sands pumped through Vermont, but he is hesitant to support a bill that would give the state certain regulatory power over such a proposal.
‘ I don’ t want to see tar sands pumped through Vermont,’ he said on Wednesday at his weekly press conference.
The governor’ s comments come a week after Larry Wilson, CEO of the Portland Pipe Line Corp., told the House Fish and Wildlife Committee that he is ‘ aggressively’ seeking opportunities to pipe oil from Alberta’ s tar sands through Vermont.
Wilson’ s company owns the Portland-Montreal pipeline, which cuts through the northeast corner of the state. If an oil company wanted to pipe a petroleum product from the tar sands region to Portland for export, it would need to use that line.
To ensure that the state has regulatory authority over a proposal of this nature, Democratic Rep. David Deen, who chairs the House Fish and Wildlife Committee, and Sen. Ginny Lyons, D-Chittenden, introduced bills that would require such an application to undergo review by an Act 250 commission. Act 250 is the state’ s governing land-use law that controls most commercial development in Vermont.
While Wilson opposes any additional regulations on his company’ s pipeline, environmental groups say the state already has that authority, and they have asked the Northeast Kingdom’ s Act 250 commission to verify whether it has jurisdiction over potential changes to the pipeline.
‘ Right now the district commission is considering a jurisdictional question ‘¦ about the pipeline,’ Shumlin said. ‘ I’ m always hesitant to weigh in with legislation when you have a process under current law that is being debated and considered.
‘ I think the Legislature is doing good work and asking the right question,’ he said. ‘ Let’ s see where that goes.’
Shumlin opposes pipeline transport of tar sands oil; governor is lukewarm about state regulation
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