STATEMENT: Alberta-Canada energy agreement is a "gift" to profitable oil companies that owe Albertans billions in cleanup costs

The pipeline and carbon pricing agreement primarily benefits "companies who have been neglecting their cleanup obligations at the public's expense."

May 19, 2026

(CALGARY, AB / TREATY 7 TERRITORY) – The Coalition for Responsible Energy (C4RE) released the following statement today in response to the climate and energy agreement signed between Alberta and Canada on May 15, 2026.

Last Friday’s announcement of the Alberta-Canada agreement on industrial carbon pricing and the construction of a new oil sands pipeline is another gift to highly-profitable oil companies who owe Albertans billions in unpaid cleanup costs for aging and inactive infrastructure across the province.

The Coalition for Responsible Energy (C4RE) unites Albertans that understand the important role of energy development in our province. We want to ensure that the development and decommissioning of energy infrastructure is done in a way that protects our province’s air, land, water, and communities – including taxpayer dollars.

“This agreement puts corporate profits over the public interest, plain and simple. Canadian oil companies are reportedly making an extra $170 million per day off the war on Iran, and the weakening of the industrial carbon price will line their pockets further. And without a private proponent for the proposed pipeline, Canadian taxpayers are at risk of paying for a project that primarily benefits majority-foreign-owned oil companies – the same companies who have been neglecting their cleanup obligations at the public’s expense.”

– Phillip Meintzer, C4RE co-founder and lead organizer for C4RE’s Clean Up Your Mess campaign.

According to internal estimates from Alberta’s Energy Regulator released in 2018, the cost to decommission and reclaim all of Alberta’s oil and gas infrastructure (e.g., wells, pipelines, oil sands mines and tailings) was $260 billion. Adjusted for inflation that’s $320 billion in today’s dollars. Lawyers with the University of Calgary’s Public Interest Law Clinic recently calculated that if these costs were to fall on the taxpayer, it would erase nearly 60% of Alberta’s total oil and gas revenues since 1970.

Our coalition firmly believes that there can be no consideration for new oil and gas development – including a new oil sands pipeline and the Pathways carbon capture project – until the oil and gas industry is made to pay for the cleanup of existing infrastructure across Alberta.

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For more information or to request an interview, please contact:

Phillip Meintzer, Coalition for Responsible Energy (C4RE), Phillip@ResponsibleEnergyAB.ca, 403-771-1647