{"id":672275,"date":"2026-05-16T00:22:11","date_gmt":"2026-05-16T00:22:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/672275\/"},"modified":"2026-05-16T00:22:11","modified_gmt":"2026-05-16T00:22:11","slug":"price-of-gas-jumps-in-n-b-after-eub-ruling-on-company-environmental-costs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/672275\/","title":{"rendered":"Price of gas jumps in N.B. after EUB ruling on company environmental costs"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Text<\/p>\n

Listen to this article<\/p>\n

Estimated 3 minutes<\/p>\n

The audio version of this article is generated by AI-based technology. Mispronunciations can occur. We are working with our partners to continually review and improve the results.<\/p>\n

Gasoline and diesel rose five cents across New Brunswick on Friday morning, driven mostly by resurgent oil company environmental costs that Susan Holt’s government had once promised it would eliminate from prices.<\/p>\n

Instead, in a ruling earlier this week, New Brunswick’s Energy and Utilities Board cleared the way for higher charges.<\/p>\n

The board found the government’s plan to eliminate them from retail prices would be “crippling” for wholesalers and retailers in a way that could eventually “collapse” petroleum supply chains in the province.<\/p>\n

In its decision, the EUB said there are “real costs” imposed on oil refineries and petroleum importers by tightening federal rules on the carbon intensity of motor fuels.\u00a0 <\/p>\n

WATCH | Gas prices jump in New Brunswick again:\"\"<\/p>\n

Why New Brunswickers are paying more for gas, despite government promise of action<\/p>\n

New Brunswick’s Energy and Utilities Board has cleared the way for higher gasoline charges, bucking a provincial Liberal campaign promise to eliminate some costs for motorists.<\/p>\n

As a result, the board\u00a0said, it would allow retailers to continue to charge motorists for these costs, despite a 2024 provincial Liberal election promise to have them eliminated.<\/p>\n

“Absent a mechanism for passing \u2026 compliance costs through to consumers, wholesalers and retailers will have to absorb them, resulting in a crippling reduction in their effective margins,” the board wrote.<\/p>\n

“Margins would fall significantly below comparator markets and the sustainability of the chain of supply would be in danger of collapse.”<\/p>\n

\"APetroleum retailers applied to the Energy and Utilities Board last fall to retain charges that allowed them to pass oil company environmental costs through to consumers. (Roger Cosman\/CBC)<\/p>\n

New Brunswick drivers have been paying a special charge on gasoline and diesel since 2023 to compensate refineries and fuel importers for costs they incur to comply with tough new federal environmental standards.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Charges on motorists were introduced by the former Progressive Conservative government of Blaine Higgs and aggressively denounced by then opposition leader Susan Holt, who argued oil companies should pay for their own environmental costs, not pass them on to consumers.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“The clean fuel regulations were designed to be borne by producers and refineries,” Holt said in the legislature in October 2023.<\/p>\n

“This government chose to make a special loophole to bypass that so that New Brunswickers would pay instead of the refineries. We think that is a poor decision, and New Brunswickers think that is a poor decision.”<\/p>\n

\"APremier Susan Holt said, when she was opposition leader, that allowing federal environmental costs on refineries to pass through to consumers was the ‘wrong decision.’ (Mikael Mayer\/CBC)<\/p>\n

The special levies have fluctuated over the last three years but had been frozen since last December at 7.9 cents (plus HST) for gasoline and 8.81 cents (plus HST) for diesel, while the EUB decided what to do about the government’s plan to eliminate them.<\/p>\n

As part of its decision this week, the board changed the way the costs are calculated and this caused the charges to motorists to jump Friday morning to 11.26 and 13.2 cents respectively.<\/p>\n

It pushed gasoline prices in the province to their highest levels in four years.<\/p>\n

The Holt government did pass legislation to eliminate the levies that was to take effect last fall, but it left the EUB with the discretion to create identical charges in their place.<\/p>\n

\"ANew Brunswick Finance and Energy Minister Ren\u00e9 Legacy told reporters Thursday the EUB decision that raised charges on motorists for oil company environmental costs showed ‘very good work.’ (Jacques Poitras\/CBC)<\/p>\n

On Thursday the Holt government gave no indication it opposed the EUB’s final decision on the matter or had any plans to introduce further legislation to undo it.<\/p>\n

Speaking to reporters, New Brunswick’s Energy Minister Ren\u00e9\u00a0Legacy said he understood the EUB decision would cause prices to consumers to “go up slightly” but praised the move to change formulas.\u00a0 <\/p>\n

He said the previous formula would have generated even higher prices once charges were unfrozen.<\/p>\n

“I think they’ve done some very good work,” Legacy said. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Listen to this article Estimated 3 minutes The audio version of this article is generated by AI-based technology.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":672276,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[45,49,48],"class_list":["post-672275","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-business","tag-ca","tag-canada"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/672275","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=672275"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/672275\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/672276"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=672275"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=672275"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=672275"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}