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Pipeline operators and railways would be required to start assessing and cleaning up an oil spill within two hours if it is near a populated area or four hours anywhere else, under regulations proposed by the B.C. government Wednesday.

Environment Minister George Heyman released his ministry’s intention paper on the beefed-up provincial spill response regulations that he and Premier John Horgan promised to “defend B.C.’s interests” amid the prospect of increasing oil shipments across the province.

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The province is now seeking public input on the measures, which, without mentioning the company, are seen as an additional barrier to Kinder Morgan’s $7.4-billion Trans Mountain Pipeline expansion project.

“This is not about Kinder Morgan specifically,” Heyman said in a scrum with reporters at the legislature. “This is about anyone who transports oil through the province.”

Heyman brought up the of the grounding of the tug boat Nathan E. Stewart off Bella Bella in 2016 as an example of where existing response times have proven inadequate, “and we’re seeing devastating impacts on First Nations because of that.”