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OTTAWA — Environment Minister Catherine McKenna on Wednesday added steam-driven oilsands facilities to the list of projects that are subject to federal environmental reviews, but will exempt those same projects on the condition that Alberta keeps certain environmental policies in place.

The inclusion of so-called in-situ facilities on the project list under Bill C-69 was largely expected by industry and other observers after Ottawa released a consultation paper in June 2018 that openly considered the move. At the time, the federal government said in-situ projects could be exempt “where a jurisdiction has in place a hard cap on greenhouse gas emissions” — a condition widely seen as a way to force Alberta to keep its climate change policies intact.

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The long-awaited project list is among the most contentious aspects of Bill C-69, which effectively overhauls the federal review process for major energy projects like oil pipelines and nuclear facilities. Industry groups have long called on Ottawa to keep steam-driven oilsands projects off of the project list, saying it poses a needless overlap in federal and provincial jurisdiction. Currently, in-situ is only given project reviews by the provincial regulator.