Amendments to the Environmental Impact Assessment Directive
Directive 2011/92/EU (EIA Directive) requires an environmental impact assessment of projects likely to have significant environmental effects prior to their authorisation.
The Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety has proposed some amendments to the directive in light of the changes in size and scope of both projects and climate change over the last 25 years.
The 'EIA' or Environmental Impact Assessment Directive establishes the principle of 'informed decisions'. This stipulates that before any public or private development project can gain consent, the relevant authorities must have acquired all information necessary to carry out an environmental impact assessment. It has been applied for the last 28 years and some have called it the 'jewel in the crown' of EU environmental legislation. It requires around 200 types of project fall within its scope - from the building of bridges, ports, motorways and landfill sites to the intensive rearing of poultry or pigs.
The most contentious amendments to the directive relate to the proposed inclusion of non-conventional hydrocarbon extraction activities onto the list of project types that systematically require an EIA.
The basis for these amendments is the 'precautionary principle' which was agreed in parliament on November 21st 2012 in a resolution on the environmental impacts of shale gas and shale oil extraction activities. This principle urges restraint in situations where the implications of a new technology are not fully known.
Sharon has received correspondence from all sides of the debate on this. Ultimately Sharon believes that drilling for shale gas is acceptable in principle and would support measured shale gas extraction, provided that a) the technology is proven to not endanger local communities, b) regulations preventing water and land pollution are strictly enforced and c) local communities should be extensively consulted.
As Sharon does not sit on the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety which is the committee primarily responsible for the directive, she has not had the opportunity to fully engage in the procedure of the file.
During the September plenary session MEPs voted to delay voting on the directive until a debate on the issue had been held between the Parliament, Commission and Council. The debate is expected to take place in October.
You can follow the progress of the directive here:
http://www.europarl.europa.eu/oeil/popups/ficheprocedure.do?reference=2012/0297(COD)&l=FR
In the meantime, Sharon will continue to follow the progress of the directive and will raise any specific concerns with her Lib Dem and ALDE colleagues at intra-party meetings.
Further Information
The chancellor is one of many advocates of increasing the share of non-conventional hydrocarbons in the UK's energy mix. Advocates of such techniques argue that the shale gas revolution in the US over the last 15 years, where it now provides around 25% of US energy, could be replicated in the UK. This would bring the benefits of energy security and a plentiful supply of cheaper gas. The US is expecting to be energy self-sufficient by 2035, it has estimated supplies for 110 years at 2011 usage levels and it pays significantly less than the UK. For example, in November 2011 the average spot price at the UK National Balancing Point was $9.21 per mmBTU, while in the same month the price from the Henry Hub Gulf Coast Price Index was a mere $3.24 per mmBTU[1]. There are obvious economic benefits from such reductions in energy costs that many hope could come to the UK.
There are also some advocates of nonconventional hydrocarbon exploitation who maintain an environmental basis to their argument. They argue that shale gas should be favoured because it is less polluting than coal and given that it will likely offset coal power plants in the UK, or abroad through the reshoring of manufacturing from more polluting countries like China or India.
However, there is a general consensus that fracking cannot be a "game-changer" in the UK as it has been in the US or could be in Poland. This is because the shale gas in the UK is more geologically complex to retrieve and therefore more costly to extract. The UK is also far more densely populated than the US which means the human disruption would be higher. Finally, living close to shale gas is also far less lucrative in the UK than in the US where an individual has ownership rights over any minerals below their land, whereas in the UK they would owned by the Crown.
The argument against the exploitation of shale gas put forward by many environmentalists is that we are just lengthening our dependency on fossil fuels and continuing to duck from our responsibility of switching to renewable energy. There are others who argue from an environmentalist stand-point, such as the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, who insist that shale gas could be "a bridge in our transition to a green future, especially in our move away from coal"[2].