The UCP Gives New Life to a Contentious Coal Mine

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The UCP Gives New Life to a Contentious Coal Mine

[ https://thetyee.ca/Analysis/2024/02/28/ ... ign=040324 ]

Grassy Mountain was deemed dead. But Australian mogul Gina Rinehart’s team kept lobbying.

Andrew Nikiforuk - February 28, 2024 The Tyee

Tyee contributing editor Andrew Nikiforuk is an award-winning journalist whose books and articles focus on epidemics, the energy industry, nature and more.

UCP Energy Minister Brian Jean told the Alberta Energy Regulator that Grassy Mountain is exempt from a ministerial order banning coal development in the Rockies. Photo via X.

The Alberta government has endorsed a new economic innovation: zombie coal mines.

The new collaborative work from Debra Sparrow and Jack Campbell will be performed on violin, harp and double bass.

Even though federal and provincial courts have repeatedly ruled that the massive Grassy Mountain project proposed by Australian billionaire Gina Rinehart has been fairly rejected by regulators and is a dead development, Alberta Energy Minister Brian Jean now deems it a live one.

In a letter to Laurie Pushor, CEO of the Alberta Energy Regulator, Jean declared that Rinehart’s Grassy Mountain proposed open-pit coal mine should be considered an advanced project and be exempt from a ministerial order banning coal development in the mountains.

“Once a project is considered an advanced project it remains as one regardless of the outcome of regulatory applications submitted before it was declared an advanced project,” wrote Jean. . . . "

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