Alberta’s regulatory updates inadequate to reach equivalency with federal regulations

Today, without public notice or comment period, Alberta published changes to Directive 60, the regulations governing methane emissions from the upstream oil and gas sector. 

EDF Senior Campaign Manager, Ari Pottens, issued the following statement:

“Alberta’s new regulations do not go far enough in terms of matching international best practices or matching the federal government’s recently finalized rules and would lead to the unnecessary waste of a valuable economic commodity.

It’s hard to understand how any third party could credibly evaluate today’s changes as being equivalent to the federal government’s. We hope that further updates will make the province’s regulations match the federal target.”

Background: Since the regulations were first announced in 2021, oil and gas operators in Canada have wasted over $2.3 billion CAD of natural gas due to inefficient production methods. Strong federal methane regulations with consistent enforcement across all provinces would lead to this gas being captured and sold, generating tax and royalty revenue to Canadians. 

Alberta’s new regulations were developed using the oil and gas industry’s self-reported data which badly underestimates the total amount of methane emissions. Peer reviewed studies consistently identify underreporting as being problematic. 

A recent analysis by EDF shows that if Alberta were to receive a 5-year delay and only need to hit the 2035 reduction target instead of the 2030 reduction target as specified in the finalized regulations, it will make the regulations 36% less effective at mitigating methane emissions and waste up to $530 million of gas.

If Alberta is given a special five-year delay and allowed to use its own data to inform equivalency, the province’s rule would be 77% less effective than the federal regulation. Under these conditions, the province would forfeit over 4,200 jobs and waste up to $1.15 billion of natural gas, an amount that could heat up to 332,000 additional homes per year through 2040.

In December, Minister of the Environment, Climate Change and Nature Julie Dabrusin told CBC News that the 75% by 2035 target is in addition to the 72% by 2030 target.

EDF analysis from October 2025 determined that implementing the then-proposed regulations would create approximately 34,000 total jobs between 2027 and 2040, due to the equipment and services needed to cut methane emissions, The jobs would be distributed roughly evenly between the energy-producing provinces in the west and the industrial manufacturing provinces in the east. 

Strong methane rules enjoy broad public support from Canadians. A November 2025 poll from Canadian Association of Physicians for the Environment shows that nearly two-thirds of Canadians (64.5%) want to see action on methane and that almost 80% of NDP/Liberal swing voters are supportive of methane regulation.