The Parliament of Victoria's Legislative Council Environment and Planning Committee has released the report from its Inquiry into decommissioning oil and gas infrastructure. Friends of the Earth Melbourne commends the report for recommending that significant obligations be placed on fossil fuel companies to clean up their old offshore oil and gas infrastructure.
Friends of the Earth Offshore Fossil Gas Campaigner Stanley Woodhouse said, 'It's encouraging to see so many recommendations from the environmental and labour movements echoed in this report. Strong financial safeguards, trailing liabilities and domestic recycling will all help Victoria deal responsibly with, and benefit from, the incoming wave of decommissioning liabilities.'
Some of the report's recommendations include that fossil fuel companies should: report on the status of their ageing offshore infrastructure; be held responsible for environmental damage that such infrastructure causes; and clean up defunct infrastructure before it degrades and releases toxins into the ocean.
Friends of the Earth says that if the report's recommendations are adopted by the Victorian government, it will be a sound example of the Make Polluters Pay principle.
'For too long, fossil fuel companies have not factored in the cost of properly cleaning up their old infrastructure and instead have treated the ocean as a dumping ground. All Victorians want to see these companies made to pay to remove their defunct infrastructure in full, hiring unionised workers to carry it out,' said Stanley Woodhouse.
A significant leak in the report's integrity remains in the suggestion that fossil fuel companies could be allowed to abandon some toxic oil and gas infrastructure in the sea if 'leaving it in place can be shown to deliver better environmental outcomes', as the Committee press release notes.
'There is no world in which the ocean dumping of contaminated industrial waste offers a benefit to the environment. Our leaders need to stop pandering to industry lobby talking points and commit to what is right for Victorians and their environment,' said Stanley Woodhouse.
