Environmental Protection Authority may be stripped of some powers

The Minister for the Environment has suggested any potential changes to the EPA will be a long way off, but environmental groups are nonetheless concerned. Photo / Getty Images

A pending deal between corporations and the Government has raised concerns that the Environmental Protection Authority's independent status could be undermined.

Minister for the Environment, Nick Smith, has been cited as a potential selector of the EPA board of inquiry in the future, which could affect its power.

This comes shortly after the EPA declined two applications for seabed mining, and organisations such as Greenpeace have expressed concern that this is why the changes to the EPA are being considered.

Greenpeace's executive director, Dr Russel Norman, has referred to the move as a "dirty back-door deal" which could strip the EPA of its current power.

"It's like being able to choose one of your friends to mark your exam paper rather than having someone independent do it - it's ludicrous."

Dr Norman expressed confusion that the EPA is being threatened, given that it was created by the National Government in 2009, and celebrated by MP Nick Smith as an independent environmental regulatory body for the good of New Zealand.

"Creating an EPA was a 2008 election promise by National and will strengthen New Zealand's environmental management. It will help achieve the Government's goal of growing our economy while effectively protecting our natural environment," he said.

The recently-declined applications for seabed mining are an iron sand mining project in June 2014, and a venture by Chatham Rock Phosphate Ltd in February 2015. Both of the applications were declined specifically because the EPA decided they would have disproportionate environmental impacts.

Norman believes the potential changes to the selection of the EPA are directly related to the blocking of those mining operations.

"Ever since the EPA declined those mining applications, lobbying efforts from the industry went into overdrive. Now the Government is putting the profit of this polluting industry over the interests of most New Zealanders who want to protect our beaches and oceans," he says.

"It has basically rendered the entire process pointless and made it nothing but a political rubberstamp. This is about a government that is fixated with mining and oil exploration and now needs its minister to step in and protect the interests of an industry that is throwing its toys out of the crib."

The Minister for the Environment has suggested any potential changes to the EPA will be a long way off, but environmental groups are nonetheless concerned.

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