AER CEO claims unprecedented power to cancel public hearing for coal mine  

Amiskwaciwâskahikan/Edmonton | Moh’kinstsis/Calgary, AB  
 
On August 21, 2025, the CEO of the Alberta Energy Regulator cancelled the public hearing for Mine 14, an underground metallurgical coal mine near Grande Cache, proposed by Summit Coal Inc.  

A public hearing is a formal and quasi-judicial proceeding, whereby members of the public can voice their concern or support for a development project. According to the AER, a public hearing “allows the hearing commissioners to make a fully informed decision” about the project. Public hearings serve as a vital tool for public transparency and for keeping communities informed about the potential impacts of a project. 

Since day one, Summit has been adversarial to the public hearing and the AER’s processes, requesting the AER reverse their decision, dismiss concerns, expedite timelines, and limit the scope of public participation. When the AER repeatedly rejected these requests Summit sent a letter to the Minister of Energy accusing the AER of “delaying jobs in Grande Cache and construction of Mine 14 by holding a public hearing”. Summit complained they were “concerned and disappointed with Alberta’s regulatory processes” and requested a meeting, sidestepping what is meant to be an independent and public process.  

The public hearing was set to occur on October 21st, 2025. That is, until AER CEO Rob Morgan, former oil and gas executive, cancelled the hearing outright on August 21st, 2025, following a request directly from Summit.  

This is an action that CEO Morgan himself acknowledges “is without precedent”.  

And yet, Summit has now successfully circumvented the public hearing process and invalidated all the previous decisions made by the AER’s own hearing commissioners and panel, by appealing directly to the CEO of the AER.  

Despite claiming otherwise, Rob Morgan has now set a precedent whereby companies unhappy that they must be accountable to the public concerns through processes explicitly outlined under the Responsible Energy Development Act can avoid the process altogether.  

Morgan’s decision undermines the authority and credibility of the AER, the hearing commissioners, and the panel appointed to review Mine 14, and the entirety of the public hearing process.  

As Morgan notes in his response, “the only matter before [him] is the July 23, 2025 decision in Proceeding 449 in which the Summit hearing panel decided not to cancel the hearing of the application”.  

This makes clear Rob Morgan has not reviewed the thousands of pages of documentation associated with this application that have informed the hearing panels decisions to this point. He would not be aware of the statements of concern that led the AER to hold a public hearing, nor read the requests to participate that warranted the AER grant the Alberta Wilderness Association (AWA) and Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society (CPAWS) Northern Alberta full standing in the proceeding. He is not familiar with the technical information and appendices associated with the mine application and does not know of the many supplementary information requests his staff had for Summit requiring clarification and amendments to remedy some of the application’s deficiencies. He hasn’t seen AWA and CPAWS Northern Alberta’s written submissions and expert reports that discuss in detail where the mine proposal fails to capture and mitigate the environmental impacts associated with the mine. He’s unaware of how Summit has repeatedly subverted the AER’s authority, attempting to delegate how the AER runs its own regulatory processes, and at one point denigrating them to the Minister of Energy and Minerals.  

All these stages, documents, and events in the process have informed the AER staff and hearing panel’s decisions to this point, which Morgan is ignorant of, and therefore not qualified to make decisions on. 

Under the direction of the AER, whose previous position was that they “expect CPAWS NAB and AWA to provide information at the hearing that can assist [them] in reaching [their] decision on the Applications”, both organizations have undertaken extensive efforts, including providing detailed written submissions, securing legal counsel, and retaining of relevant experts to assist the regulator in this process, to demonstrate how the watershed, airshed, landscape, and wildlife populations will be affected should Mine 14 go forward.  

CPAWS NAB and AWA were not only granted full participation status in the hearing to provide expert environmental evidence, but to also represent the views of our thousands of supporters and members at the hearing, many of whom live, work, and recreate in the Grande Cache area. In making this decision, Morgan has discounted these views, and the values they represent. A public hearing would have afforded all participants, limited and full, the opportunity to provide social, economic and environmental evidence for the AER hearing panel to decide on the merits of Mine 14. Summit, and Morgan have robbed the public of that opportunity. 

“It is baffling that one man has unilateral power to cancel a public hearing on the request of a coal company, undermining all the other times the staff at the AER familiar with the project decided otherwise. This decision tears down any illusion that the AER can function as an independent and balanced regulator accountable to the public.”  

– Kennedy Halvorson, Conservation Specialist, Alberta Wilderness Association.  

“We are very disappointed that the CEO of the AER has circumvented the authority of the AER’s own panel and processes and that we will no longer have the opportunity to voice our concerns about this project’s environmental impacts at a public hearing. This decision will further erode the credibility and public trust in the AER.” 

 – Tara Russell, Program Director, CPAWS Northern Alberta. 

For more information, please contact:  

Kennedy Halvorson, Conservation Specialist, AWA, [email protected] 

Tara Russell, Program Director, CPAWS Northern Alberta, [email protected]