Energy and Natural Resources Law

We offer a cross section of the numerous challenges and opportunities associated with the integration of large-scale battery storage of renewable energy for the electric grid. These challenges range beyond scientific and technical issues, to policy issues, and even social challenges associated with the transition to a more sustainable energy landscape. The commissioning on 1 December 2017 of the Tesla-Neoen 100 MW lithium-ion grid support battery at Neoen’s Hornsdale wind farm in South Australia, at the time the world’s largest, has focused the attention of policy makers and energy professionals on the broader prospects for renewable energy storage. An adequate and resilient infrastructure for large-scale grid scale and grid-edge renewable energy storage for electricity production and delivery, either localized or distributed, is a crucial requirement for transitioning to complete reliance on environmentally protective human energy systems. Its realization will require a strong synergy between technological advances in variable renewable energy storage and the governance policies that promote and support them. We examine how existing regulations and governance policies focusing on large-scale batteries have responded to this challenge around the world. We offer suggestions for potential regulatory and governance reform to encourage investment in large-scale battery storage infrastructure for renewable energy, enhance the strengths, and mitigate risks and weaknesses of battery systems, including facilitating the development of alternatives such as hybrid systems and eventually the uptake of hydrogen fuel and storage.

It is a challenging task for Bangladesh to meet its increasing demand of energy while its economy is rapidly growing. Though prices of oil, coal, and fossil fuels around the world have been volatile, the price trend in Bangladesh demonstrates a persistent rise in the immediate past. This is further exacerbated by depleting reserves of natural gas. Cumulatively, these two effects heighten Bangladesh's energy needs. Bangladesh presently mitigates her energy requirements predominantly through natural gas, supplemented by a handful of coal and furnace oil plants. Consequently, due to scarcity of natural gas, oil and coal resources, nuclear power surfaces as a palatable strategic option for Bangladesh's future development agenda. However, a successful nuclear power program entails an extensive infrastructure. Just like the other nuclear energy-producing countries, Bangladesh also face challenges to safeguard the health and security of nuclear reactors, the proper management for nuclear waste treatment and the security concerns over the safe usage of nuclear materials. Additionally, the development of nuclear energy is also bewildered because of the complex nature of fission technology, lack of efficient human resources, and non-existence of proper legal instruments to guide safe nuclear power production. Moreover, the further challenges include the questions, for example: whether the nuclear power plant project is supported by the mass people or not? What are the strategies for nuclear waste disposal? Whether the recent initiatives for nuclear energy production is necessary or the country should more concern with renewable sources? This paper evaluates the nuclear energy development in Bangladesh. It operates under qualitative methodological framework and utilises secondary sources for analysis. We advance several recommendations in this paper to remedy the highlighted issues: (1) creating a comprehensive legal and regulatory system; (2) fortifying home-based technology of nuclear development and simultaneously localising of foreign-based technology; (3) reducing the cost of nuclear energy production; (4) fast-tracking the procedure of efficient development of nuclear technology; (5) accelerating the procedure of switching to more efficient reactor and nuclear fuel cycle, and (6) conducting effective profile-raising activities to generate greater awareness and spur common acceptance.

The World Trade Organization cannot deal comprehensively with restrictive export practices maintained by energy cartels such as the OPEC. The main reason for this is the absence of competition rules in the multilateral trading system. However, in spite of the fact that the WTO does not have rules on competition, it does provide for other rules, such as GATT Article XI on the General Elimination of Quantitative Restrictions. This article will take a law and economics approach and explore whether restrictive practices in the energy sector as maintained by OPEC could be caught by this article. It will analyse whether OPEC’s ‘monopolist market power instrument of choice’, namely the administration of production quota on petroleum, could fall within the definition of this Article. To this end, this contribution aims to understand the economic and legal rationales and functioning of both the WTO and OPEC.

The use of renewable energy resources which are described as “naturefriendly” “clean energy” is being promoted to prevent negative consequences of fossil fuel usage. Consequently, the share of renewable energy resources in Turkey’s electricity generation is targetted to be increased to at least 30% by 2023. Turkish Law involves both primary and secondary legislation regulating both licensed and unlicensed electricity generation by using renewable energy resources. In Turkey, the unlicensed electricity generation scheme is based on the policy of self-consumption of electricity by the producer. The system applies the principle of unlicensed selfproduction by real and legal persons to supply their own energy needs. On the other side, the opportunity for natural and legal persons, who generate electricity from renewable energy resources, to sell surplus energy production is also.



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Fosil yakıt kullanımının yarattığı olumsuz sonuçların önüne geçmek amacıyla, enerji üretiminde, “çevre dostu”, “temiz enerji” olarak nitelendirilen yenilenebilir enerji kaynaklarının kullanımı teşvik edilmektedir. Bu doğrultuda, ülkemizde, 2023 yılında elektrik enerjisi üretiminin en az % 30’unun yenilenebilir enerji kaynaklarından sağlanması amaçlanmaktadır. Türk hukukunda, yenilenebilir enerji kaynaklarından elektrik üretiminin, gerek lisanlı gerek lisanssız olarak gerçekleştirilmesine yönelik birincil ve ikincil mevzuat mevcuttur. Ülkemizde lisanssız elektrik üretimi hususunda, üretenin, ürettiği elektriği öz tüketimi için kullanımı politikası benimsenmiştir. Lisanssız üretim yapan gerçek ve tüzel kişilerin kendi ihtiyaçlarını karşılamak için üretim yapmaları esası kabul edilmiştir. Bununla birlikte, yenilenebilir enerji
kaynaklarından lisanssız elektrik üreten gerçek ve tüzel kişilere, ihtiyaç fazlası elektriği satma imkânı da tanınmıştır.

This contribution explores the interplay between liberalisation and decarbonisation of the European electricity market. The focus of this piece is to see whether liberalisation of the EU electricity market, in Europe realised by means of the unbundling regime, inherently promotes decarbonisation of the grid. In other words, it seeks to explore if decarbonisation of the electrical grid is a positive externality of liberalising the market, absent of any other policies promoting the scale up of renewables in the grid. To this end, it examines existing economic and econometric literature on the issue and places it in the greater context of internal energy market legislation and European energy policy.

The development and use of resources on one side of a border can unintentionally, yet predictably, affect resources on the other side. When one state affects another through externalities, negative results arise.  To avoid conflict, inefficiency, and environmental harm, states may effectively use structures of international cooperation, raising the question: Are states normatively obliged to consult other states about domestic resource decisions?  This essay defends criteria for understanding when circumstances of affected collective interests call for robust international decision-making procedures.  The discussion focuses on principles of inter- and trans-governmental relations, and so does not take up the issue of individual participation rights.  It asserts a strong claim that in certain cases of on-going mutual or asymmetrical effect, the principle of state permanent sovereignty over national resources does not apply.  Instead, key resource rights should be held by an interstate governmental body.

The Agency for the Cooperation of Energy Regulators (ACER) has been established in 2009 in the Third Liberalization Package of Energy Sector. The Agency became fully operational in 2011. After 5 years of its functioning the Author presents his opinion on general issues like legitimacy of the European Union regarding the tendency of creating new European agencies (among them ACER) and the problem of the common belief in rule of experts in the typical field of politics. Subsequently the paper handles the history of setting up the Agency and the description of its bodies and competencies in order to present the achievements of ACER within 5 years of its work. The Author concludes with positive statement: ACER meets its goals, encompassing the principle of subsidiarity and helping the Commission and National Regulatory Authorities in realizing the aim of establishing the common energy market in European Union.

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China is appraised to have the world's largest exploitable reserves of shale gas, although several legal, regulatory, environmental and investment-related issues will likely restrain its scope. China's capacity to successfully face these hurdles and produce commercial shale gas will have a crucial impact on the regional gas market and on China’s energy mix, as Beijing strives to decrease reliance on imported oil and coal, while attempting to meet growing energy demand and maintain a certain level of resource autonomy. The development of the unconventional natural gas extractive industry will also endow China with further negotiating power to obtain more advantageous prices from Russia and future liquefied natural gas (LNG) suppliers. This paper, adopting a comparative perspective, underlines the trends learned from unconventional fuel development in the United States, emphasizing their potential application to the Chinese context in light of recently signed production-sharing contracts between qualified foreign investors and China. The wide range of regulatory and enforcement problems in this matter are accrued by an extremely limited  liberalization of gas prices, lack of technological development, and political hurdles curbing the opening of resource extraction to private investors. These issues are exacerbated by concerns related to the risk of water pollution deriving from mismanaged drilling and fracturing, absence of adequate regulation framework and industry standards, entailing consequences on social stability and environmental degradation.

TO DOWNLOAD THE FULL FILE OF THE ARTICLE: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2802157

Chlorophyll and betalain pigments extracted from scent leaves and flower of Bougainvillea Spectabilis were used as sensitizers for nanostructured TiO 2 based dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs), and their perfomances were investigated systematically. The light harvesting pigments have shown absorption in broad range of the visible region of the solar spectrum and appreciable adsorption onto the semiconductor surface. The photovoltaic (PV) parameters such as short circuit current density ( J SC ), open circuit voltage ( V OC ), fill factor ( FF ), and overall solar conversion efficiency ( η ) were determined under 100 mAcm -2 . The DSSC fabricated with betalains pigment from Bougainvillea Spectabilis was found to be superior to that obtained from chlorophyll pigment of scent leave ( Ocimum Gratissimum ). The DSSC gave a short circuit current density of 0.093 mAcm -2 , open circuit voltage of 0.433 V, fill factor of 0.550, and an overall solar conversion efficiency of 0.040%. The cell ...

The European Union (EU) has a recognized international legal personality and it has signed the Energy Charter Treaty (ECT) as a Regional Economic Integration Organization (REIO). As a result , the ECT, the EU and national legislation together establish different regulatory layers governing energy markets. Although those layers are in principle complementary, rules adopted in different periods and frameworks may cause inconsistencies in their implementation. The arbitral tribunal award on 21 January 2016 in the case Charanne and Construction v Spain, is only the latest illustration of the uneasy boundaries between the EU and ECT. This article will look into some of the dynamics and tensions between the EU internal energy market and policy and the ECT in the areas of transit, long-term contracts, renewable energy and external relations. The review of selected measures and case law will reveal the existence of tensions at regional and international levels and the way they are addressed to simultaneously accommodate regional and international legal orders. This article will help to understand what kind of interactions are happening today between the EU and the ECT legal systems and will offer a particular view to explain and approach those relations.

The introduction of intelligent grids and/or intelligent metering systems promises much from the perspective of the three pillars of European law and policy: security of supply, sustainable development and competition. The analysis in the article mainly covers the legal provisions of the third energy liberalisation package of the European Union (EU) and the regulatory
challenges connected with the introduction of intelligent grids and/or intelligent metering systems. Legal regulations in the new liberalisation directives seem to be 'unfinished' as the development of inteligent grids and/or intelligent metering systems is dynamically evolving. The author argues that the uncertainty of future legal provisions should not be considered as a barrier to intelligent grids and/or intelligent metering systems deployment and presents his prognosis of the future development
of legal regulations in this respect. Furthermore, the author suggests that the deployment of smart grids will change many aspects of regulatory policy, which will have to evolve towards 'output-based regulation'.

This Article provides a glimpse into a living laboratory for the governance of the energy-water-food nexus. It does so to expand our understanding of nexus govern-ance, which has remained under-examined in the context of unconventional gas development. Focusing on a case study of unconventional gas development in the state of Queensland in Australia, the Article explores governance innovations to manage this energy source's impact on water and food. The Article draws upon empirical data to identify a hybrid approach to nexus governance, involving a mix of four policy instruments, which each differently frames and responds to nexus challenges arising in this emerging governance space. Each instrument has strengths and weaknesses, which leads to the identification of at least two pathways for better governing nexus issues: (1) building governance hybrids that adapt existing approaches to ensure complementary policy responses to nexus issues; and (2) pursuing new holistic and collaborative governance systems that can navigate complex social, economic, and environmental problems. The aim is to further inform the governance debate on nexus issues, particularly in the context of unconventional gas, and its impacts on water and food.

Bangladesh, with poultry farms number of 215000 and poultry population of 200 million, has a potential of 1.33TWhr electricity per year. Despite of this huge potential, only few number of biogas plants have been deployed till date. Besides, most of these plants are unable to produce the expected amount of biogas as most of the digesters of these plants are made locally and they don’t have any scheme for monitoring and controlling temperature, pH, bacterial population in digester, mixture of different substrate, hydraulic retention time, total solid (TS), periodic agitation, periodic loading and unloading of substrate etc. But, there is few bigger size plants which contain imported digesters equipped with monitoring and controlling schemes, hence they produce bigger amount of biogas. In this study, an analysis has been done focusing the impacts of above mentioned factors on biogas production by comparing biogas production between locally made digesters and imported digesters. The res...

This article discusses the place of both the World Trade Organization (WTO) and the Energy Charter Treaty (ECT) and their role in global energy governance in the light of the fragmentation debate roughly twenty years after their establishment. The Energy Charter Secretariat (ECS), the administrative body overseeing the ECT, has taken tension and overlap between the WTO and the ECT into account by providing extensive guidelines on incorporation of WTO rules into the Treaty. This so-called ‘coordination ex ante’ was aimed at functioning as a conflict prevention tool. However, gaps, conflicts and uncertainties remain. Moreover, developments in the past two decades, such as changes in membership to both the ECT and WTO, combined with an attention shift in a rapidly changing trading landscape, invite a re-evaluation of both treaties in view of fragmentation.

Transboundary environmental impact assessment (EIA) is a rather new regulatory tool under international law. While there is consensus that customary international law obliges States to require transboundary EIA to be conducted for particularly invasive measures, the specific procedure and content of these assessment procedures is not stipulated by customary international law. It rather provides general principles that leave considerable room for interpretation by States when implementing transboundary EIA requirements and procedures. A procedural measure so far little discussed is post-EIA monitoring of particularly invasive measures. Post-assessment monitoring is, however, considered to be a necessary tool to enable stakeholders to manage environmental impacts effectively. Still, due to a lack of specific State practice and opinio iuris, an obligation to conduct or require post-EIA monitoring does not exist as a separate provision of customary international law. Nonetheless, it may follow indirectly from the obligation to exchange information and the no-harm rule.

in: M Cremona and H Micklitz (eds) Private Law in the External Relations of the EU (Oxford University Press, 2016)

This contribution discusses regulatory private law in the energy sector as it manifests itself in the external relations of the EU. It looks at the example of the Energy Community Treaty and examines the synergy between the Council of European Energy Regulators (CEER) and the Energy Community Regulatory Board (ECRB) in facilitating customer protection in the Members of the Energy Community.

Selten standen sich gesetzgeberische Notwendigkeiten und ablehnender Bürgerwille so un-mittelbar gegenüber wie beim Ausbau der Hochspannungsleitungen. Während das Ob des Ausbaus durch die Ausbaugesetze vorgeschrieben ist, trifft das Wo und Wie der Planung oft auf den Protest der Anwohner. Die Ausbaugesetze betonen deswegen die Herstellung von Partizipation und Akzeptanz als neue Ziele der Öffentlichkeitsbeteiligung beim Energielei-tungsausbau. Dabei bleibt jedoch unklar, ob die neuen Ziele bestimmte Auslegungen des Rechts oder bestimmte Verhaltensweisen der Verwaltung fordern. Dies untersucht der vorlie-gende Beitrag, unter anderem unter Bezugnahme auf politik- und sozialwissenschaftliche Verständnisse von Partizipation und Akzeptanz.
DVBl. 13 (2015) 808ff.

Exploration and production companies frequently partner with host countries that struggle to maintain political stability and eliminate security threats, making it difficult to develop security strategies to protect company employees and assets in country. Exploring this problem, we interview elite actors who populate germane risk management networks, providing a cross-section of perspectives as to how well upstream producers are crafting and implementing security risk management strategies. We construct a model of holistic security risk governance, and apply it to what our dataset reveals about firm performance in this area. Finally, we recommend ways in which industry-level responses can support exploration and production companies to reduce their risk and enhance their performance.

The paper is a comparative regulatory analysis of the Alaska Heritage Trust Fund, the Alberta Permanent Fund, and the Government Pension Fund of Norway as developed country natural resource fund (NRF) models. Its objective is to examine how NRFs are regulated. To achieve this objective, it explores and compares the socio-political contexts and regulatory features of the three NRFs, drawing lessons along the way. Given the dearth of publications on the domestic as opposed to transnational regulation of NRFs, it carries out an original review of primary and secondary policy sources, both legal and non-legal documents, along with a synthesis of representative bodies of literature. It finds that NRFs are mainly regulated by laws and institutional support which constitute four key regulatory features: legal frameworks and objectives, ownership regimes, structure and functionality, and governance and operation. The conclusion is that how NRFs are regulated, based on these features, determines their outcomes.

In Freedom of Transit and Access to Pipeline Networks under WTO Law, the author appropriately introduces the topic by stating that energy is featuring increasingly prominently as a topic in international trade law. Indeed, while being a dormant issue in the World Trade Organization (“WTO” forum for decades, the importance of energy in the multilateral trading system can no longer be denied today. The reasons for its growing importance can, inter alia, be attributed to the changing nature of energy generation and global trade in energy, as well as the large number of accessions of major energy producing, exporting and transporting countries to the WTO over the past fifteen years. An example of how the importance of the WTO for energy can no longer be ignored is, for instance, the fact that beyond disputes regarding renewable energy, a case concerning the European Union’s Energy Package and Russia’s access to the EU gas market is currently pending at the WTO (DS476, EU – Energy Package). It may well be that this unprecedented case becomes a turning point for the WTO as a forum for resolving energy trade disputes. Unintentionally, the WTO may be de facto taking over this role from institutions such as the Energy Charter Secretariat.

The concept of social licence to operate (SLO, simply ‘social license’ or ‘social licensing’) originated in the mining industry and its use has also been extended over large infrastructure, energy, and industrial projects. In simple terms, the SLO refers to: 1) “the ongoing acceptance of a company or industry's standard business practices and operating procedures by its employees, stakeholders and the general public” (Investopedia 2018), and 2) “the level of acceptance or approval by local communities and stakeholders of mining companies and their operations.” (Fraser Institute 2012). Specifically in the mining sector, the SLO can be summarised as attempts to “to secure the acceptance of mining activities by local communities and stakeholders, in order to build public trust in their activities and prevent social conflict” (IRP UNEP 2017) whereas such attempts “are premised on engagement between mining companies, governments and civil society to ensure that mineral resource extraction contributes to nation¬al and local development, and that damaging impacts on host communities and the environment are mitigated or otherwise managed” (ibid.).
The need of the developers/investors to obtain the SLO stems from the “the demands on and expectations for a business enterprise that emerge from neighbourhoods, environmental groups, community members, and other elements of the surrounding civil society” (Gunningham, Kagan, Thornton 2014). In turn, from the perspective of developers/investors, the SLO is “a pragmatic calculation of what is required to minimise business risk and win the degree of community support required to avoid delay or disruption to company operations” (Owen, Kemp 2013). The SLO is based on some agreement between developers/investors and stakeholders/the community and can take a form of 1) “an informal agreement that infers ongoing acceptance of an industrial or energy project by a local community and the stakeholders affected by it” (Gallois, Ashworth, Leach, Moffat 2017) or 2) “a form of unwritten social contract that exists between companies and communities” (Lacey, Lamont 2014)
The lawmakers can assist with the development of agreements for SLO through procedural empowerment of various stakeholders such as by securing 1) access to environmental information, 2) public participation in environmental law making, strategic impact assessment (SEA) or project-specific environmental impact assessment (EIA), and 3) related administrative and judicial review procedures. Moreover, within the framework of sector-specific corporate-social-responsibility (CSR) / Triple Bottom Line (TBL) activities, developers/investors also seek to secure wider SLO going beyond pure compliance for a number of reasons such as a desire to avoid boycott, or a belief that downplaying such expectations would eventually lead to the adoption of stricter regulation (Gunningham, Kagan, Thornton 2014). Indeed, to quote Curran, “[i]n an age of CSR, social licence thus acts as a form of strategic risk management for most major companies. Its objective is to protect companies’ financial and reputational assets by proactively anticipating and managing contestation rather than simply reacting to it.” (2017).
Obtaining SLO in relation to the extraction of hydrocarbons and electricity generation is more relevant than ever. On a global scale, the public awareness concerning the impact of new investments and ongoing operations in those sectors on the environment, climate and quality of life of affected communities is constantly increasing, whereas we remain as far as ever from phasing out conventional fuels: about 1160 new coal power plants (CPP) and about 50 nuclear power (NPP) are currently planned or being constructed (Global Coal Plant Tracker 2020; World Nuclear Association 2020). At the same time, the push towards the electrification of the automotive industry predicts massive expansion of mining projects in response to a growing demand for elements used in the production of batteries.
The angles, from which the controversies surrounding the SLO can be looked at, are numerous. Foremost, specific sectors can be analyzed in terms of SLO, including 1) prospection, exploration and extraction (upstream) of hydrocarbons, 2) electricity and heat generation, 3) linear investment such as such oil and gas pipelines (midstream) or high voltage electricity transmission grid with emphasis on cross-border interconnectors, and 4) underground storage of gas, oil and CO2. Secondly, SLO can be looked at in terms of the involvement of public authorities in the social licensing process, including 1) the legislative works with regard to laws affecting above-listed sectors, 2) the preparation of various plans, programs and/or strategic environmental assessment (SEA) which cover the above-listed sectors, and 3) Environment Impact Assessment (EIA) of specific projects in the above-listed sectors.
Thirdly, SLO can be examined through the prism of procedural empowerment of stakeholders, including 1) access to information such as on the progress of the SLO-related legislative process and/or project-specific environment-related information, 2) public participation in the legislative process, preparation of environment-related plans and programmes, the SEA, the EIA, 3) related administrative and judicial review procedures, 4) the duty to obtain free, prior and informed consent (FPIC) from indigenous communities, and 5) consultation with indigenous communities in relation to law and plan making. The procedural empowerment of stakeholders also ties to how property rights and taxation revenue are allocated among investors and affected stakeholders, including 1) separation of right to deposits between treasuries and land holders, 2) distribution of royalties between treasuries and landholders, 3) contractual arrangements between developers/investors and landholders, 4) expropriations and compensation, and 5) specific tort regimes in the mining and nuclear sectors. Finally, SLO can also be looked at from the perspective of who imposes SLO-related requirement, including 1) major multilateral developments banks (MDBs), 2) sub-regional MDBs, 3) national development banks/agencies of major donors, or 4) domestic laws in specific jurisdictions.
In the course of this project running throughout 2019, we have gathered the following contributions partially addressing the above-mentioned phenomena, and we have grouped these into sections of this special issue related to 1) conceptualization of the SLO, 2) intersections between SLO and protection of investment, 3) regional perspectives, 4) case and sector studies, 5) outer space, and 6) one book review.

Over the past decade, Zambia has seen an increase in the flow of foreign direct investment; a large quantity of which went into the copper mining industry. The price of copper increased radically, which prompted the Zambian government to reconsider the preferential tax regime that foreign mining companies enjoyed to ensure that Zambia benefited from this change in circumstances.

The tax regime was originally implemented to encourage the inflow of foreign capital, and to revive an industry that had been crippled by previously low copper prices. The concession agreements between the Government of Zambia and the mining companies contained Stabilisation clauses which constitute a promise on the part of the host government not to amend its laws in a way that adversely affects the economic rights contained within that particular concession agreement.

The article examines Stabilisation clauses in concession agreements and their legal effect on a host state’s power to amend its laws unilaterally. This issue is discussed in light of the Kuwait v Aminoil case which seems to suggest that “Stabilisation clauses” do not outrightly prohibit states from modifying their laws when economic circumstances change. Finally the article looks at a legal framework that ensures that neither the rights of the investor on one hand or the state on the other take precedence over the other.

On February 15, 2018, the Supreme Court of Canada (SCC) considered oral arguments in Orphan Well Association v. Grant Thornton Limited (Grant Thornton). Initially, the Court of Queen's Bench of Alberta determined that the Alberta Energy Regulator's (AER) regulatory framework for reclamation and abandonment of oil and gas wells was ultra vires to the extent that it conflicted with the Bankruptcy and Insolvency Act, a decision affirmed by the Alberta Court of Appeal in 2017. The effect of Grant Thornton is to allow trustees in bankruptcy, who are administering the estate of insolvent oil and gas companies, to disclaim an insolvent's worthless well assets (e.g., non-producing wells where the abandonment and reclamation process is not yet complete), while selling its valuable well assets (e.g., producing wells). The judgment allows secured creditors the best chance possible to be compensated from the bankrupt's assets, while leaving Alberta's oil and gas industry (and potentially the Albertan taxpayer) to pay the cost for the bankrupt's reclamation and abandonment obligations. It has opened the floodgates for bankruptcies, as creditors push financially distressed companies through the bankruptcy process before the SCC issues its judgment, and potentially changes the law This article provides an analysis of the case to date, but does not hazard a guess as to the ultimate holding. Rather, it will focus upon four of the case's key constitutional issues: the doctrine of interjurisdictional immunity (IJI); the doctrine of federal paramountcy (federal paramountcy); the principle of cooperative federalism (cooperative federalism); and, the ''disinterested regulator " defence. Each of these issues impact Canadian energy federalism. Canadian energy federalism is the compact between provinces and the federal government, which designates the rights and responsibilities associated with Canadian energy resource production, management, and transport. Part 2 provides some background for understanding the case. Part 3 sketches the AER's current regulatory framework for abandoning, remediating, and reclaiming wells (regulatory framework). Part 4 analyzes the constitutional issues outlined above. Finally, Part 5 offers some concluding thoughts about outstanding issues in Grant Thornton not addressed in this article, and then reflects upon the impacts that this pending judgment will have upon Alberta's efforts to reform its current regulatory framework.