Legal regulation of environmental impact assessment

General Provisions

The legal regulation of environmental impact assessment (EIA) plays a key role in ensuring environmental safety and rational use of natural resources. EIA allows identifying and analyzing potential consequences of economic and other activities on the environment, as well as making decisions on the admissibility of implementing projects taking into account ecological and social-economic factors. In Russia, the legal basis for EIA is formed by federal laws, regional regulatory acts, and international agreements, one of the participants of which is the Russian Federation.

The EIA procedure includes a set of activities aimed at collecting, processing, and evaluating information on the impact of planned activities on nature. According to Russian legislation, it entails not only a scientifically substantiated assessment of environmental impacts but also consideration of public opinion in decision-making. An important aspect is transparency: EIA materials must be accessible for review by interested parties, which contributes to fostering environmental awareness and enhancing the accountability of economic entities.

The main principles of EIA include the presumption of potential ecological danger associated with any proposed activity, evaluation of alternative project implementation options, prevention of potential negative consequences, and ensuring transparency of the procedure. These principles ensure a comprehensive approach to environmental impact assessment and allow for minimizing the risk of ecological damage when implementing projects of various scales and industrial sectors.

In the legislation of the Russian Federation, three stages of EIA are established: notification and preparation of a technical assignment, conducting studies and preparing a preliminary version of documents, as well as preparing the final report. The results of EIA are used to justify the selection of locations for facilities, technologies, and for making decisions to refuse implementation of activities if they entail excessive environmental risk.

Despite the developed regulatory framework, problems with EIA are noted in scientific and legal literature: insufficient differentiation of procedures for different types of activities, late public notification, and lack of effective sanctions for improper conduct of the assessment. Resolving these issues contributes to strengthening the legal mechanism for environmental protection and increasing the efficiency of environmental oversight in Russia.

As noted by S.A. Bogolyubov, the mandatory environmental impact assessment for each project (EIA), which has reversed the ecological and economic situation in several countries, has been making progress here for two decades but encounters difficulties in publishing and other methods of disclosing EIA, conducting and recording public hearings, challenging decisions made on projects in court, etc.¹

The legal basis for conducting an environmental impact assessment is provided by the legislation of the Russian Federation, the legislation of the subjects of the Russian Federation, international treaties and agreements of which the Russian Federation is a party, as well as decisions adopted by citizens through referendums and as a result of the implementation of other forms of direct democracy².

The general provisions on EIA are provided by the Federal Law “On Environmental Protection.” A special normative legal act in the field of EIA is the order of the State Committee for Environmental Protection of Russia “On Approving the Regulation on the Assessment of the Impact of Planned Economic and Other Activities on the Environment in the Russian Federation”³.

According to Article 1 of the Federal Law «On Environmental Protection», environmental impact assessment is a type of activity aimed at identifying, analyzing and taking into account direct, indirect and other consequences of the impact on the environment caused by planned economic and other activities in order to make a decision regarding the possibility or impossibility of their implementation. Such a definition, according to S.A. Bogolyubov, can, of course, be subject to scientific criticism, since any definition is incomplete, imperfect, intended to highlight the main characteristic features of a phenomenon, especially in the context of regular attempts on EIA and ecological aspects. expertise as a means of preventing unrestrained construction and non-ecological, anti-ecological investments⁴.

At the same time, in the Regulation on the Assessment of Impact of Planned Economic and Other Activities on the Environment in the Russian Federation, the procedure for EIA is defined somewhat differently. According to this Regulation, environmental impact assessment is a process contributing to the adoption of ecologically oriented managerial decisions regarding the implementation of planned economic and other activities by identifying potential adverse effects, assessing environmental consequences, taking into account public opinion, and developing measures to reduce and prevent impacts⁵.

Definitions of EIA are also proposed in scientific literature. According to M.M. Brinchuk, EIA is an activity aimed at determining the nature and extent of potential impact of the planned activities on the environment, expected environmental and related social and economic consequences during and after implementation of such a project, as well as developing measures for ensuring rational use of natural resources and protecting the environment from harmful effects in accordance with requirements of current environmental legislation⁶.

If the planned economic and other activities may have transboundary effects, conducting studies and preparing materials for the assessment of environmental impact shall be carried out in accordance with the provisions of the UNECE Convention on Environmental Impact Assessment in a Transboundary Context⁷. The aforementioned Convention⁸ was adopted in Espoo, Finland on February 25, 1991, signed in February 1991 by Goskompriroda of the USSR from the former USSR, whose successor state is the Russian Federation⁹, and has not been ratified by the Russian Federation to date.

It is also important to note that an environmental impact assessment (EIA) is conducted with respect to planned economic and other activities that may have a direct or indirect effect on the environment, regardless of the organizational and legal forms of ownership of entities engaged in such economic and other activities (paragraph 1 of Article 32 of the Federal Law "On Environmental Protection"), for proposed economic and other activities, the justifying documentation of which is subject to environmental expertise in accordance with the Federal Law "On Environmental Expertise"¹⁰.

The purpose of conducting an EIA is to prevent or mitigate the impact of this activity on the environment and related social, economic, and other consequences¹¹.

As noted by N.V. Kichigin, according to Russian legislation, EIA must be conducted in relation to any planned economic and other activities, and the procedure for conducting an EIA is not differentiated with respect to different objects. As a result, a project for developing an oil and gas field and a project for building an auto workshop should undergo the impact assessment procedure under a single uniform procedure¹².

The main principles of environmental impact assessment are: 1) presumption of potential ecological hazard of any planned economic or other activity; 2) prevention of possible adverse impacts on the environment and related social, economic and other consequences in the case of implementation of planned economic and other activities; 3) consideration of alternative options for achieving the goal of the planned economic and other activities, as well as the «no-action alternative» (refusal to engage in the activity); 4) transparency (ensuring public participation in the preparation and discussion of materials on environmental impact assessment

5) reliability and completeness of information regarding the nature and scale of impact on the environment from the planned activities, alternatives for their implementation (the client is required to provide all participants in the environmental impact assessment process with the opportunity to timely receive complete and reliable information)¹³.

The legislation provides for three stages of conducting an environmental impact assessment (EIA): 1) notification, preliminary assessment, and preparation of a technical assignment for conducting the environmental impact assessment; 2) conducting research on the environmental impact assessment and preparation of a preliminary version of the materials for the environmental impact assessment; 3) preparation of the final version of the materials for the environmental impact assessment¹⁴.

At the same time, as noted by M.V. Ponomarev, the procedure for conducting an Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) is based on the necessity of public participation, including informing the public about planned economic and other activities, and involving the public in the EIA process, which is carried out by the client at all stages of this process, starting with preparing the technical specification for conducting the EIA. However, in practice, familiarization of the public with EIA materials occurs only at the final stage of their preparation¹⁵.

The results of the environmental impact assessment are: 1) information on the nature and scale of the impact on the environment from the proposed activity, alternatives for its implementation, assessment of ecological and related socio-economic and other consequences of this impact and their significance, as well as the possibility of minimizing impacts; 2) identification and consideration of public preferences when the applicant makes decisions regarding the proposed activity; 3) the applicant's decisions on determining alternative options for implementing the proposed activity (including the location of the facility, selection of technologies and other factors) or rejection of it, with taking into account the results of the conducted environmental impact assessment¹⁶. At the same time, materials on the environmental impact assessment of the planned economic and other activities, which are subject to environmental expertise, are included in the documentation submitted for expert review¹⁷.

Thus, among the main problems of EIA (environmental impact assessment) identified in scientific literature are: 1) absence of sanctions for improper conduct of EIA; 2) the EIA procedure is not differentiated in application to different types of activities; 3) public familiarization with EIA materials is conducted at the final stage of their preparation¹⁸.