Russia Says Nyet to Environmental Agency.

In a move that has sent shock waves through the Russian environmental movement, Russia's State Committee for Environmental Protection was abolished on 17 May 2000 by President Vladimir Putin. Putin announced that the duties of the former committee will be transferred to the Natural Resources Ministry (NRM), the agency responsible for licensing the development of the country's natural resources. The former committee was the sole agency responsible for carrying out environmental inspections and impact reviews as well as enforcing the country's environmental laws. Now these responsibilities lie in the hands of an agency that some fear may not have the best interests of the Russian environment at heart.

The NRM immediately announced plans to simplify Russian environmental legislation, for instance, by reducing the number of logging quotas in an effort to overhaul the policy's previous restrictions. In addition, on May 25, the Russian government announced the decision to construct 40 more advanced nuclear power reactors by the year 2030. Recently, Putin named Alexander Gavrin, who has close ties to the country's biggest oil producer, Lukoil, as the new energy minister.

Numerous petitioners, from members of the Russian Academy of Sciences to Patriarch Aleksy II of Moscow and All Russia, head of the Russian Orthodox Church, have asked Putin to reestablish an independent environmental agency. Russian activist Alexei Yablokov called the country's environmentalists together for a one-day conference a month after Putin's announcement to gather signatures for a nationwide referendum to restore the committee. According to an article in the 6 July 2000 Moscow Times, the participants of the conference signed an open letter to the citizens of Russia, asking them to demand a "complete change in the attitude of the governmental bodies towards the solution of environmental problems."

After Putin's election in March, the World Bank offered a $60 million dollar loan to Russia's forestry industry to help improve the investment climate for logging in Russia. In mid-July, 67 Russian scientists and activists asked the World Bank to suspend the funds until Putin reinstates the State Committee for Environmental Protection. World Bank vice president Johannes Linn agreed to not disburse the loan until the government clarifies its plans regarding reinstatement of the committee. After receiving a letter from the members of the Russian Academy of Sciences requesting restoration of the committee, Putin said he would think about it, and appointed the review of his decision to minister of natural resources Boris Yatskevich.

Commenting on Putin's restructured agencies in an Associated Press news release, Linn said, "The government's decision to reorganize those services can therefore be seen as an opportunity to improve natural resource management in Russia." But Yablokov, along with other prominent citizens, issued a statement on July 19 saying, "At this time the Ministry of Education is trying to exclude ecology from the secondary school program, [and] the Ministry of Internal Affairs forbids an environmental police in Moscow.... One must not improve the investment climate in Russia by lifting environmental restrictions and exit an economic crisis by aggravating an environmental one."