'Environmental Ministry failed primary mission,' says MK Pines-Paz
Government to amend Municipalities Act, make requirement to include environmental experts in local committees optional; forgoes government representation
The fight for the preservations of the environment took another hit this week, as the Knesset's Internal Affairs and Environment Committee gave the green light to taking government representatives out of municipal environmental committees.
The Israel Municipalities Act stipulates that each municipality must have an environmental protection committee and that each committee must include an Environmental Protection Ministry representative.
An amendment to the Municipalities Act, which passed its first Knesset reading several weeks ago, called for eliminating government representation in local committees for budgetary reasons.
Knesset's Internal Affairs and Environment Committee held a hearing on the matter on Tuesday and voted to go ahead and prepare the amendment for its second and third readings. The vote was carried despite MK Ophir Pines-Paz's (Labor-Meimad), who head the committee, objections.
The art of prioritizing
The Environmental Protection Ministry supported the amendment citing its budget enables it from sending representatives to the 263 municipal environmental committees.Further more, said the ministry, appointing their reps to local committees may result in a conflict of interests and hinder the principle of separation of powers.
Any such representative, explained the ministry, may face serious conflicts should sanctions against a municipality committing violations be implemented – since he or she were sited on the committee making the decisions leading to the sanctions in the first place.
The Environmental Protection Ministry is not obligated by law to intervene in matter pertaining to local government.
MK Pines-Paz rejected the claims, but accepted the ministry's budgetary claims "with reservation"; adding that while he understood "the ministry has more pressing priorities, the decision may harm the Environmental Protection Ministry ability to carry out its mission in full."
"You keep looking for easy answers instead of taking the Prime Minister's Office and the treasury head-on," he said. "That's why you have a smaller budget this year. The Israeli public pleads for cleaner air, water and land, but you can fulfill you elementary mission and can't maximize the use of your personnel."
Israel Union for Environment Defense slammed the decision as well, criticizing the government's "poor prioritizing", calling on the Environmental Protection Ministry to "face the public and confess that its budgetary priorities גo not allow it to allocate the necessary resources needed to meet the environment challenges Israel faces."
The group further rejected the ministry's conflict of interests claim: "There are plenty of commissions with government representatives on them and it hinders neither local government nor government enforcement."
The hearing concluded with the committee voting in favor of a motion brought forwards by MK Esterina Tattman (Yisrael Beiteinu), calling for municipalities to include an environmental expert in their committees as an advisor.
