The Environmental Protection Authority will commence formal consultation next month on its greenhouse gas guidelines, refuting media reports it has already decided to revive the guidelines that caused industry outrage earlier this year.
EPA chair Tom Hatton said a 12-week consultation period would begin on June 10.
This comes after the state government pressured the EPA to rescind its draft guidelines, which had called for big companies to fully offset carbon emissions from large projects.
Woodside Petroleum led the fight against the draft guidelines, saying they threatened investment in major projects.
To inform the consultation process the EPA will be issuing a background paper and will make its rescinded guidelines available during the consultation period.
It insisted today this was for reference purposes only and did not signal support for the rescinded guidelines.
“The EPA is open to changing its greenhouse gas guidance in response to the community submissions,” it said in a statement.
The formal consultation process follows meetings of the EPA’s Stakeholder Reference Group, which includes the Chamber of Minerals and Energy of WA, the Australian Petroleum Production and Exploration Association and the Conservation Council of Western Australia.
Dr Hatton’s statement followed an article in The Australian Financial Review today titled 'New crisis for the resources industry'.
Dr Hatton said the authority had listened to industry, interest groups and the community on the need to consult further on the guidelines.
“The intention of the further consultation is to listen to community and our stakeholders, to ensure the greenhouse gas guidelines provide a robust and effective framework within which the EPA will consider the greenhouse gas emissions of future proposals,” Dr Hatton said.
“The EPA welcomes all submissions on potential changes to our greenhouse gas guidelines and we will take all views into account.”
Submissions will be reviewed and published online following the three-month consultation period.
The EPA will consider all public submissions and prepare revised guidelines, that will then be considered by the Stakeholder Reference Group.
The board intends to release its new guidelines in December 2019.
