Volume 3, issue #12 - 17-04-1998

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UK mending breach on Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) regulations

Mar. 6, 1998 UK's Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) has closed the consultation period on its draft Environmental Impact Assessment Regulations for offshore oil and gas activity.
The Government is aiming to implement the regulations on April 1st 1988. It aims to implement the European legislation before the European Union rules on a Greenpeace challenge about breach of the legislation.
Greenpeace, however, criticised the draft regulations as too weak and singled out the decision to leave environmental protection with the DTI as the equivalent of putting "vampires in charge of the blood bank."
The story relates to the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) regulations enshrined in European law, which the UK Government has been in breach of since 1988.
The regulations require that a full assessment is carried out into the impact oil production will have on the environment, including the climate. In March 1997 Greenpeace lodged an official complaint with the EU about the UK's failure to implement EIA regulations in relation to oil exploration in the ocean wilderness known as the Atlantic Frontier, West of the Shetlands.
The environmental pressure group has highlighted three main disagreements in its response to the UK's draft regulations.
- The first is that the DTI, a department established to promote and assist industry, will be in charge of regulating the industry's environmental impact.
- The second is that the regulations will not be applied to the exploration stages of oil development. Infrastructure building, seismic testing and appraisal drilling are all exempt from having full environmental impact assessments despite the potential impact these activities have.
- The third is that the regulations do not acknowledge or assess the impacts of multiple developments in one region.
Greenpeace Oil Campaigner Sarah North said "The UK Government wants to have its cake and eat it. It wants to avoid censure from the EU about its failure to care for the environment but at thesame time to carry on abusing it through needless and ill-regulated oil exploration. Its time for Mr Blair to have a long hard look at his environmental commitment. If he cares about major global issues like protecting our oceans he will impose thorough regulations on the rush for new oil. If he cares about climate change he will stop the oil exploration entirely, we not only don't need the oil but can't afford to burn it."
Greenpeace is opposing new oil exploration throughout the world on the grounds that there is already more fossil fuels in reserve than can be burnt without pushing climate change beyond ecologically safe limits.
Greenpeace has submitted its response to the draft regulations as part of a joint paper from the Oil and Gas Consortium an umbrella group of environmental organisations.