Adianto P. Simamora, Jakarta – The Environment Ministry may miss a deadline for implementing the 2009 Environmental Law on schedule, activists agreed.
The law, which was deemed crucial for the Environment Ministry to stop environmental damage, requires that 12 regulations be approved by Oct. 3. As of this week, no regulations have been issued.
Legal expert Mas Achmad Santosa and Indonesian Center for Environmental Law head (ICEL) Rhino Subagyo said the failure was due to Environment Minister Gusti Muhammad Hatta's poor leadership.
"The environment minister must take a resolute step in drafting government regulations," Mas Achmad told reporters on the sidelines of an environmental permit workshop on Thursday. "The minister should show leadership, manage his deputies and finish the draft government regulations."
Mas Achmad said that the ministry could no longer bow to demands from other sectors to delay implementation of the law. Rhino agreed, saying that a lack of synergy among deputies at the ministry has hampered deliberations on the regulations.
The environmental law was passed on Oct. 3, 2009 as the second environment-related law during the tenure of former minister Rachmat Witoelar. There are also currently no regulations to implement the waste management law that was issued in 2008, he said.
Ministry Civil Enforcement Division head Vivien Rosa Ratnawati said that it would be difficult to meet the Oct. 3 deadline. "We hope the draft government regulations on environment permits will be brought up at interdepartmental discussions next week," she told reporters.
Under the draft, a single environmental permit will replace 10 existing licenses that govern the disposal of liquid waste into water or water sources, use of waste water for land applications, temporary storage of hazardous water, collecting hazardous waste, processing hazardous waste, disposal of liquid to sea and other areas.
Gusti said in the workshop's opening speech that it was not an easy job to merge the 10 existing licenses.
The law on the environment stipulates that an environmental permit may be used as requirement for obtaining or maintaining a business license, as previously reported.
Project developers must obtain an environmental impact analysis document (Amdal) to obtain an environmental permit. Permits can be issued by the ministry, governors, regents or mayors, depending on the scale of a project and the location of the companies.
The environment minister is responsible for issuing permits to companies operating in more than one province or to businesses dealing with security affairs.
Upstream oil and gas regulator BPMigas previously called on the ministry to delay implementation of the law, saying they were not prepared to adopt technology needed to lower the temperature of waste water.