Members of the Association of Environmental Professionals (PAEW) found a contradiction in the requirements of the Law of Ukraine "On the Protection of Atmospheric Air" and the approved resolution of the Cabinet of Ministers "Procedure for work related to the issuance of permits for emissions of pollutants into the air by stationary sources, accounting for business entities that have received such permits for emissions," which carries corruption risks.
What are the consequences of such a discrepancy, experts told on the website of the Association.
In their opinion, the mechanism for obtaining a permit for emissions of pollutants into the air from existing and newly created stationary sources, where there have been changes in their parameters, quantitative and qualitative composition of pollutants, is opaque and creates corruption risks when issuing such permits. They accused the Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources of Ukraine:
"Can we expect a real improvement in the state of the environment (atmospheric air in this case), if for years the relevant ministry is building yet another non-transparent mechanism for issuing documents of a permissive nature?"
What are the provisions on permits contained in the law?
The Law of Ukraine "On Atmospheric Air Protection" provides for the possibility of emissions after obtaining the appropriate permit. If there have been changes in the parameters of emission sources, their number, quantitative and qualitative composition of pollutants, implementation of measures to reduce emissions, then changes are made to the specified permits.
Also, Article 11 of this law stipulates that the procedure for carrying out works related to the issuance of emission permits shall be established by the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine.
What does the Order on Permits say if there have been changes regarding emission sources?
Currently, the "Procedure for conducting work related to the issuance of permits for emissions of pollutants into the atmospheric air by stationary sources, accounting of economic entities that have received such permits for emissions", approved by Resolution of the CMU No. 302 of 03.13.2022, is in force. (as amended by Resolution of the CMU dated January 24, 2023 No. 63).
It involves receiving new emission permit taking into account the changes that have occurred at the facility.
What is the contradiction
Having analyzed the aforementioned law and procedure, PAEW concluded that the provisions of clause 7 of the Procedure regarding the requirement to make appropriate changes to emission permits by obtaining a new permit contradict the provisions of Article 11 of the Law as a normative legal act of higher legal force. The provisions of the Procedure establish a new legal norm, which is not directly provided for by the Law in terms of the mechanism of "obtaining a new permit (for emissions)" taking into account all the changes that have taken place.
What are the consequences of such a discrepancy?
- Significant complication and deterioration of business conditions in Ukraine, including the deployment of industrial production with foreign investments.
- The creation of a non-transparent mechanism for issuing permit documents, which contradicts the basic principles of the operation of the permit system in Ukraine, which are defined in the Law of Ukraine "On the permit system in the sphere of economic activity".
The Association's specialists gave an example: the implementation of measures to reduce emissions at several sources or change parameters and/or the appearance of a number of new (5-6, etc.) emission sources, with the total number of stationary emission sources, for which it will be necessary to obtain a "new emission permit". up to 1,000-1,500 units, the business entity will need to bear additional costs each time for the preparation of emission inventory materials, substantiation of pollutant emission volumes for everyone stationary sources of the object, taking into account <1% of the sources that have actually undergone changes.
"This leads to an unjustified increase in the costs of business entities for the preparation of the necessary documents, an increase in the time required to obtain a permit for emissions and a slowdown in the permitting process as a whole (taking into account certain "difficulties of approval")", PAEW is sure.
Therefore, the experts proposed to set out paragraph 8 of the Resolution in the following version:
"In the case of changes in the parameters of emission sources, their number, quantitative and qualitative composition of pollutants, implementation of measures to reduce emissions, appropriate changes are made to permits by obtaining a new emission permit exclusively for those emission sources that have undergone such changes with confirmation of the acceptability of the cumulative impact such changes to the level of atmospheric air pollution, taking into account the impact from all existing sources of emissions."
As Ecopolitic reported earlier, Ukraine introduced air quality index indicator of the European model.
