The Alberta Liabilities Disclosure Project has come out swinging against the Provincial government's Bill 12.

Co-founder Regan Boychuk says the Kenney government pulled a fast one on them.

"Under the cover of COVID, the UCP rammed through, in just three days, Bill 12, which made troubling changes to Alberta's oil and gas and pipeline legislation governing the Orphan Well Association's operations while no one was looking," Boychuk says. "The Orphan Well Association has always been deeply flawed, its board is dominated by industry and it regularly misinforms Albertans about the cost of clean-up."

He says it's not well known but, by law Alberta's Energy Regulator must charge industry enough to cover the full cost of cleaning up its entire orphan inventory every year.

Boychuk says the OWA shouldn't have any unfunded wells and should never need a public bailout at all, instead of relying on a pattern of public loans for clean-up.

They say Bill 12 gives workers too much power and allows them to enter their property without getting permission first.

The group is calling on the federal government to place strict conditions on any public loans to the Orphan Well Association to avoid political influence, uphold Canada's Polluter Pays principle, and create prosperity and employment.