The first budget of Stephen Harper’s majority government aims to speed up the approval process for oil pipelines connecting the Alberta tar sands with the B.C. coast, according to the Wilderness Committee.

Today (March 29), the Vancouver-based environmental group criticized plans in the federal budget to “weaken” the environmental review process.

“The federal government has complained for many months about the length of the review process in the case of the proposed Enbridge Northern Gateway Pipeline, and so now it appears set to try and cut back environmental review to make it easier for future projects, like Kinder Morgan’s planned pipeline expansion,” Ben West, the Wilderness Committee’s healthy communities campaigner, said in a news release.

According to a 2012 budget backgrounder, the Harper government seeks to “establish clear timelines, reduce duplication and regulatory burdens” for major projects through “system-wide legislative improvements” to the environmental review process. The plan is to “focus resources on large projects where the potential environmental impacts are the greatest”.

“We will implement responsible resource development and smart regulation for major economic projects, respecting provincial jurisdiction and maintaining the highest standards of environmental protection. We will streamline the review process for such projects, according to the following principle: one project, one review, completed in a clearly defined time period,” Minister of Finance Jim Flaherty said in his budget speech.

According to Équiterre, the proposed changes to the environmental review process would make it harder for environmentalists and the public to have their concerns heard when it comes to major projects. The Montreal-based environmental group also noted the Harper government plans to shut down the National Round Table on the Environment and the Economy.

“In a budget that seems to have been written for, and even by, big oil interests, the Harper government is gutting the environmental protections that Canadians have depended on for decades to safeguard our families and nature from pollution, toxic contamination and other environmental problems,” Steven Guilbeault, deputy director of Équiterre, said in a release.

In a shot at environmental groups, the budget would allocate $8 million to the Canada Revenue Agency for a crackdown on charities engaged in “political activities”.

“It is also proposed that the Income Tax Act be amended to restrict the extent to which charities may fund the political activities of other qualified donees, and to introduce new sanctions for charities that exceed the limits on political activities, or that fail to provide complete and accurate information in relation to any aspect of their annual return,” the budget plan states.