A Critical Look at BC’s New Tax Breaks and Subsidies for LNG /

A critical look at BC’s new tax breaks and subsidies for LNG Introduction ON MARCH 25, 2019 THE BC GOVERNMENT publicly released details of its fis- cal framework for LNG development.1 A package of tax breaks and subsidies to BY MARC LEE be provided to the LNG Canada consortium is described in an official document, May 2019 the Operating Performance Payments Agreement between the Province of BC and [...] Powering fracking and LNG will be the primary purpose of the 5,100 GWh per year Site C The public costs dam.7 BC Hydro is investing an estimated $10.7 billion for the Site C dam plus $600 million for of new generation two transmission lines to provide electricity to upstream gas fracking and processing in the and transmission Northeast. [...] A megawatt (MW) is a measure of the instantaneous ability of the electricity system to generate this energy, like the size of a car’s engine. [...] Given transmission lines the $88–110/MWh cost range for the Site C dam, this will be a subsidy to upstream fracking for the benefit of the operations of between $108 million and $249 million per year. [...] No matter how clean BC’s gas production is, the bulk of emissions from LNG Canada will actually occur in the importing country where the gas is burned.15 While the details of the CleanBC incentive program are still being worked out, the threshold for No matter how qualifying for the carbon tax rebate will almost certainly be favourable to LNG Canada.