Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1509678
8 maltatoday | SUNDAY • 15 OCTOBER 2023 NEWS Enemalta would like to bring to the market's attention the upcoming judicial sale by auction of various data centre equipment and material. The full list of items to be put up for sale, including, a valuation report by a court expert will be shared with any interested bidder free of charge by sending an email on datacentreauction@enemalta. com.mt. Date: 18th October, 2023 at 11am Location: Data Centre, One (1) Chamber at the former A Station, Marsa Power Station, Triq Belt il-Ħażna This advert is not to be taken as advice on court procedure and any interested bidders are to make their own independent verification and seek advice if they deem necessary. PN seeks wider mandate for environment committee MATTHEW VELLA THE Nationalist Party is request- ing changes to the parliamentary rules governing the parliamentary committee for the environment, citing an inadequate framework for the MPs to debate matters of urgency such as the climate crisis. Opposition Whip Robert Cuta- jar said the PN had made various appeals to widen the committee's remit. "This committee so far has practically only debated chang- es in local plans," Cutajar said in a justification for a motion to enable the committee to debate all subjects falling under plan- ning, environmental and climate change matters. The committee met 32 times in the last legislature, and 39 in the 2013-2017 legislature when its chairmanship was held by the then-Labour MP Marlene Farru- gia – Farrugia had used the pow- ers of the committee to invite NGO representatives to testify before the committee over the siting of the American University of Malta in Żonqor. Cutajar said the PN's motion would free the committee from being regulated by current laws, and instead recognised under Standing Orders just as for most existing parliamentary commit- tees. Unlike other committees, the standing committee on the envi- ronment and climate is governed by three pieces of legislation, namely the Environment, Devel- opment Planning, and Climate Action Acts. Each law refers to the commit- tee in specific matters: the De- velopment Planning Act, which sets up the House committee for the environment, states that MPs can discuss matters referred to it in terms of the Environment Protection Act and the Climate Action Act. In turn, these lim- it the discussions to changes in the PA's local plans, and annual low-carbon and climate adapta- tion targets, and the draft Spatial Strategy. The Environment Protection Act says that the committee can discuss local plans referred to the House, as well as the Nation- al Strategy for the Environment and the State of the Environment Report; and then any other doc- ument the environment minister "may deem necessary". On its part, the Climate Ac- tion Act obliges the minister re- sponsible to table – once every five years at the least – Malta's national low-carbon develop- ment strategy and national adap- tation strategy, as well as report on an annual basis Malta's pro- gress in meeting those targets, referring the documents to the committee. "To us it is unacceptable that such important issues, whose impact is directly on the peo- ple's quality of life, cannot be discussed. The government seems comfortable in this busi- ness-as-usual situation so that certain issues do not feature more regularly in the House," Cutajar told MaltaToday. So far, the environment com- mittee, chaired by Labour MP Deo Debattista, has met three times since the 2022 election, to discuss standalone crematoria and the PA's proposals to declas- sify certain public domain sites. In the last legislature, the PN proposed the creation of a parlia- mentary committee for climate emergency to scrutinise national binding targets for air quality and emissions reductions. The Maltese government had announced in July it would be setting up a new authority to monitor the impact of climate change and coordinate actions to mitigate its effects. The an- nouncement came in the wake of an emergency meeting of the Malta Council for Economic and Social Development after a week- long series of severe power cuts at the height of a summer heatwave. Energy minister Miriam Dalli said that following a Bill regulat- ing the creation of such an agen- cy, the authority's main objective will be to carry out a monitoring of the impact of different activ- ities on climate change, and to present proposals on the actions that the country needs to take to address the global crisis. mvella@mediatoday.com.mt MPs in environment committee can only convene under specific subject-matters as Opposition demands wider remit PN Whip Robert Cutajar (inset) wants parliament's environment committee to have a wider remit