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Tuesday, 29 October 2013] 490526 Amendment of section 62: EIA reportSection 62(2) of the Act requires an organ of state to firstconsider an environmental impact assessment report beforeauthorising land to be used for activities within the coastalprotection zone which may have an adverse effect on thecoastal environment. Since the NEMA Environmental ImpactAssessment (EIA) Regulations already cover activities whichmay have an adverse effect on the coastal environment, thissection is unnecessary. In addition, it is unclear what is meantby an "environmental impact assessment report" and it isassumed to be a reference to the report under the EIARegulations, although it is not clearly stated so. An EIA reportis only one component of an environmental authorisationprocess so this terminology is inaccurate. It is thereforeproposed to delete subsection (2).27 Amendment of section 63: Criteria for considering EIAsfor coastal activitiesThe criteria in section 63 of the Act have given rise tointerpretational difficulties for competent authorities. Thefactors listed for which authorisation must be refused are sobroad, that it could potentially prevent competent authoritiesfrom granting authorisations. The amendment proposes toaddress this problem by incorporating the exclusionary criteriaas part of the general criteria to be taken into account bycompetent authorities when considering EIA applications.28 Amendment of section 64: Minister’s overrideThe Amendment Bill proposes the deletion of section 64 of theAct. This section currently gives the Minister an overridepower over a competent authority to issue an environmentalauthorisation in certain circumstances, which creates aparallel process to the appeal process in NEMA and causesconfusion.ANNOUNCEMENTS, TABLINGS AND COMMITTEE REPORTS NO 147─2013