Senate Environment and Communications Legislation Committee, , 5:26:01 to 5:30:52
The Minister defends the regulatory separation between policy development and compliance enforcement regarding industrial emissions and the role of the Clean Energy Regulator.
Topics: Integrity, Emissions reduction, Fossil fuels
Speakers: Hon Tim Ayres, David Pocock, Unknown Speaker, Varun Ghosh, Susan McDonald
Last question.
>> Yeah, sure. Well, maybe to you, Minister. Um, what do you have to say about Chevron uh and their methane links leaks and just the lack of I guess you know clearly they're not a good corporate citizen if this is the the way that they are um treating Australia and the and the public.
So, I've just reviewed the article that you've referred to, which um appears to related to independent satellite monitoring of the facility. and I think uh I think an assertion here that in late August recorded an average emission rate of about 7.8 tons of methane an hour. you used a figure earlier. I'm not quite sure. I I I I didn't quite catch it. Um uh and it appears that there is not a settle just from reading the article, not a settled approach. Maybe there is with the regulator in in Western Australia as the officials outlined to you. the the department's job here is as a the the regulator's job in this case the CER and the state uh you know the Western Australian regulator uh have a function to discharge to deliver on the integrity uh of the policy measures um and that that requires annual uh emissions measurement and I assume particularly at the state level some compliance um uh more granular work. Now this will be the subject of discussions between the regulators and Chevron. They will come up with a settled approach to how you know is is there more than anticipated? Is is that result of some engineering defect or is it a you know what is what are the circumstances here? Nobody in this room knows. Um there are there are stringent rules in place um uh to monitor emissions through the safeguard mechanism and the CER is responsible for discharging that work and they will be able to answer those questions to the extent that they can. Officials here are not regulators. They are they are doing the policy work.
>> No, I accept that minister but it's got to be someone's responsibility. We all pay the the price for carbon um carbon um in the atmosphere and climate change. And it seems to me when you look at what's happened with Santos up in Darwin and their you know leaking tank thanks to Konico Phillips and how that was just not reported for for years and then this one with Chevron where we hear after the fact and it doesn't it seems like it's falling between WA regulator and the Commonwealth. Um
>> no it no that's not that's not it hasn't fallen in between. There there is a there is the clean energy regulator and the western Australian regulator. They have duties to discharge. They will be discharging them. The clean energy regulator will be here in you know minutes or hours time to answer questions about that. Um if there's some deficiency there they will account for that um for that issue. The officials who are here now are policy officials >> and and and and they should and they cannot and should not intervene in indivi because that that undermines the integrity of the compliance mechanism. Uh that's what that's what the clean energy regulator is there to do. That's what the western Australian system is there to do.
>> It's debatable.
>> Um ask well >> I don't approach these set of issues with the cynicism that that that interjection evidences. I just say they are accountable for that work. um they will be here to answer questions that work. The officials here cannot help you on the on the individual ins and outs of an individual facility and its emissions. Uh the story appears to say um I've lost the link to it. Um uh circa uh 7.8 >> um 7.8 tons of methane um an hour. Now, that is serious because it's methane. It's got a it's got a more um it's got bigger climate effect than than CO2 does. Um but the it's well within the scope of the regulator to deal with those questions and they'll be able to no doubt uh alerted by this discussion, you know, come here able to answer those
>> Thank you, Senator Per. Thank you, Mr.