(Contributed by the Ministry of Environmental Protection Spokesperson)
July 22, 2008 will long be remembered as the day in which Israel's Knesset (parliament) passed Israel's Clean Air Law. The law, which is expected, in the words of Environmental Protection Minister Gideon Ezra to "bring about a veritable revolution in our treatment of air quality hazards that may harm our health," was passed following some three years of deliberation.
A Clean Air Bill was first submitted to the Israel Knesset as a private member's bill on December 19, 2005 by a group of Knesset members and was drafted together with the Israel Union for Environmental Defense (IUED), Israel's leading environmental advocacy NGO. It passed the first of three readings in the Knesset plenum in the 16th Knesset in 2005.
Subsequently, the Ministry of Environmental Protection and a team of the Knesset Internal Affairs and Environmental Protection Committee invested major efforts to prepare the law for its second and third readings, in cooperation with the IUED and representatives of the country's green NGOs, the industrial sector and other government ministries.
The law provides a comprehensive framework for the reduction and prevention of air pollution by setting responsibilities and imposing obligations on the government, local authorities and the industrial sector. The law will come into effect in January 2011 since its implementation, according to Environmental Protection Minister Ezra, will require additional manpower and a much larger budget. However, says Ezra, "the allocation of these resources for the law's implementation will pay off: the reduction of pollution will not only diminish risks to the public but will also reduce the economic costs which are caused by pollution, and at the end of the day, will lead to major benefits to the economy."
The aim of the law is: "to improve air quality and prevent and reduce air pollution, inter alia, by establishing prohibitions and obligations according to the precautionary principle, in order to protect human life, health and quality of life and to protect the environment including natural resources, ecosystems and biodiversity, for the public and for future generations, while considering their needs."
The comprehensive law relates to a wide range of provisions including, among others, establishment of emission limit values, requirements for emission permits from major industrial polluters, publication of air quality data and forecasts, granting authority for vehicular pollution to the Ministry of Environmental Protection, formulation of a national plan for the reduction and prevention of air pollution, air pollutant monitoring and sampling, obligations of local authorities to reduce and prevent air pollution within their jurisdiction, increased enforcement and stricter penalties.