The Globe and Mail reports in its Thursday edition that the feds may curb the National Energy Board's power, including stripping it of sole oversight for new projects, as part of reforms to a body under pressure over a botched pipeline hearing. A Reuters dispatch to The Globe says that Ottawa, responding to what it argues is general public displeasure with how environmental assessments of energy projects are carried out, is eyeing reforms and tentatively plans to push them through in 2018. Such changes will irritate an industry that thinks the NEB is working well. Critics say the NEB is too close to oil interests. The Liberals have named an expert panel to review potential changes to the environmental assessment system and will wait for it to report back early next year before deciding which approach to take. Environmentalists and aboriginal activists are stepping up opposition to energy projects, threatening years of delays at a time when Canada needs to get its landlocked crude to its east and west coasts. The NEB upset Natural Resources Minister Jim Carr and other cabinet members with the way it handled a hearing into TransCanada's proposed Energy East pipeline in Quebec.