MINING.COM Staff Writer

Columnist Bill Mann writes in MarketWatch on Thursday, a big battle is shaping up over environmental regulation of Canada’s oil sands, the second-largest oil deposits in the world. And, surprisingly, it’s Conservatives against Conservatives.

The Green Party of New Zealand is taking aim at coal with new legislation that would make coal miners bear the brunt of their emissions. According to the Otago Daily Times: The Climate Change Response (Low Carbon Economic Development) Amendment Bill would amend the Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) to ensure all new activities and industries that use lignite, are fully liable for the costs of the greenhouse gas emissions they emit. "Large scale lignite mining in Southland could see New Zealand's carbon emissions increase by as much as 10 million tonnes a year, when we already need to decrease them by more than 20 million tonnes a year," said the architect of the bill, Green MP Gareth Hughes.