The Committee on Environmental Policy and Nature Management considered the draft law No. 3091 "On State Environmental Control" prepared for the second reading.
The draft law defines the legal and organizational principles, basic principles and procedure for state environmental control, the powers of state environmental control, and establishes the responsibility of economic entities for violations of legislation on environmental protection and use of natural resources.
The Chairperson of the Committee on Environmental Policy and Nature Management stressed the importance of the draft law to address the problem of improper use of nature and to regulate the issue of both state environmental control and the activities of the State Environmental Inspectorate or another body to be established to replace it.
Deputy Minister of Environment and Natural Resources Roman Shakhmatenko spoke about the main differences between the new version of the bill. In particular, according to him, the document has been finalized in the part concerning the activity of the State Ecological Inspectorate. In order to combat corruption, it is proposed to increase the level of salaries of inspectors. At the same time, the responsibilities of the business entity in the context of interaction with environmental inspectors are prescribed.
Roman Shakhmatenko noted that it is proposed to remove the norm from the bill, which provides for the possibility of suspending the activities of the violating enterprise by the inspector. According to the new wording, only a court can suspend activities.
A large number of technical and legal amendments were also made, and the powers of various departments were clarified and delimited.
After the detailed discussion, the Committee decided to approve the new version of the text of the bill and submit it to the Verkhovna Rada for consideration in the second reading.