Proceedings of the Standing Senate Committee on
Energy, the Environment and Natural Resources

Issue 33 - Evidence - November 29, 2012

OTTAWA, Thursday, November 29, 2012

The Standing Senate Committee on Energy, the Environment and Natural Resources met this day at 9:07 a.m. for the consideration of a draft budget.

Senator Grant Mitchell (Deputy Chair) in the chair.

[English]

The Deputy Chair: Welcome to the Standing Senate Committee on Energy, the Environment and Natural Resources. My name is Grant Mitchell; I am a senator from Alberta and am the deputy chair of the committee. I am sitting in today for Senator Neufeld from British Columbia, who is the chair and who regrettably is absent.

We are here today for the purposes of considering and finalizing the budget for our committee's efforts and research for the rest of the fiscal year, which ends March 31 of 2013. We are proposing, and we have had the endorsement of the Senate, to do a three-part study to be finished by the end of June 2013. The study will involve a look at pipeline safety, the transportation of hydrocarbons through pipelines; shipping safety, the transportation of shipping hydrocarbons; and finally rail safety. We propose to have three reports, two interim and one final, and those would be published for public viewing by the end of June 2013.

The budget that we have proposed for the first part of this study, which will end with the end of this fiscal year, March 31, 2013, would total $126,743. That includes $9,253 for professional services, transportation and communications to get us to Hamilton, Sarnia, Calgary, so that we can do some direct on-the-ground, as they say, research into the pipeline safety issue, and then some assistance for graphics, printing, et cetera, in our budget.

With the approval and agreement of the committee, I would like to read a motion that would cover those expenses and, once passed, we would take it to the Standing Committee on Internal Economy, Budgets and Administration to be approved.

Is it agreed that the following special study budget application, hydrocarbon transportation, for the fiscal year ending March 31, 2013, be approved and that the chair be authorized to submit the application to the Standing Committee on Internal Economy, Budgets and Administration as follows: professional and other services, $9,253; transportation and communication, $110,990; and all other expenditures $6,500. That would total $126,743.

All in favour?

Hon. Senators: Agreed.

The Deputy Chair: Thank you very much. I declare the motion passed and it will move along to the next step.

Is there any other business to discuss?

We will be presenting a pipeline backgrounder for the upcoming meeting on Tuesday with National Energy Board officials. The chair cannot be there. He wants to appear and we will call him later, but this will kick off the pipeline study with the NEB people.

(The committee adjourned.)