The Government of the Russian Federation, jointly with the State Duma, is instructed to ensure the completion and adoption in the first reading of draft federal laws aimed at improving the legislation of the Russian Federation concerning the environment and systems of state environmental control.
The government is instructed to make amendments to Russian Federation legislation contemplating the following:
- ensuring ecological security in implementing infrastructure projects in exploration, extraction, and transport of hydrocarbons on the Russian Federation’s continental shelf and its exclusive economic zone, taking into account international requirements and standards;
See also
- improving state regulation in ensuring environmental security for nuclear facilities, sources of radiation and storage facilities for nuclear materials, radioactive substances and radioactive waste;
- improving procedures for organising and conducting state environmental expertise.
The instructions to the Government also concern ratification of the UNECE Convention on Environmental Impact Assessment in a Transboundary Context, signed in Espoo on February 25, 1991, and its Protocol on Strategic Environmental Assessment, signed in Kiev on May 21, 2003.
In particular, the Government is instructed to present suggestions aimed at:
- developing and implementing systems for assessing the development of dangerous environmental processes, including seismic threats with the possibility of tsunamis and submarine landslides;
- activating Russia’s participation in international cooperation to ensure environmental security when exploiting natural resources in the Arctic, Pacific, Caspian, Black Sea, and Baltic regions.
The Government is also instructed to make decisions allowing the Russian Federation to join the UNECE Convention on Access to Information, Public Participation in Decision-making and Access to Justice in Environmental Matters, signed in Aarhus on June 25, 1998.
Individual instructions were given to the Russian Government jointly with executive bodies of Russia’s federal constituent entities.
In particular, the Russian Federation Government, jointly with the Government of Nizhny Novgorod Region, received concrete instructions to eliminate several household and industrial waste storage sites.
Together with executive authorities in Krasnodar Territory, the Government is instructed to take concrete measures to ensure environmental security in preparations for the Olympic Games in Sochi, including meticulous compliance with commitments made in the Sochi 2014 Bid Book.