THERE IS NO TIME TO WASTE:
Letter to MEPs EIA Dir Plenary vote_Sept 2013_FINAL.doc
The letter attached above needs to be copied and pasted into emails, amending and sending to the 4 Welsh MEPs as a matter of urgency as the vote is in three days time. You could also deliver to the office address and telephone too for good measure given the timescale and the importance of getting the message across. Use both email addresses where given. (Add your address details as eviddnce that yoiu are a constituent, thereby giving them one less excuse to ignore you!)
Labours’s Derek Vaughan’s contact details:
4th Floor
Transport House
1 Cathedral Road
Cardiff
CF11 9SD
Tel: 029 20 227660
E-mail: E-mail: contact@derekvaughanmep.org.uk
derek.vaughan@europarl.europa.eu
Conservative Kay Swinburne’s contact details:
Kay Swinburne MEP
Rhumney House
Copse Walk
Cardiff Gate Business Park
Cardiff
CF23 8RB
Tel: 029 2054 0895
kayswinburnemep@welshconservatives.com
kay.swinburne@europarl.europa.eu
Plaid Cymru’s Jill Evans’ contact details:
Jill Evans MEP
45 Gelligaled Road
Ystrad
Rhondda Cynon Taf
CF41 7RQ
T: 01443 441395
jill.evans@ep.europa.eu
UKIP’s John Bufton’s contact details:
UKIP Wales,
1 Caspian Point,
Cardiff CF10 4DQ
jbufton@ukipwales.org
john.bufton@europarl.europa.eu
As a point of information, in last November’s vote on a Europe-wide moratorium on fracking, as we would expect, the tories and UKIP MEPs towed their party’s official lines and voted against the moratorium. In now typical Labour Party dithering, their MEPs voted all over the place, not knowing whether to vote with the S&D block that was in favour of the moratorium, or to follow the typical right wing leanings of the Labour Party in the UK. Derek Vaughan ended up rebelling against the S&D block and betraying Wales to the frackers, and voting against the moratorium (one of just 18 out
of 170 to do so). This means just Jill Evans got it right! (PC are part of the Green/EFA group)
Full details of that vote are here: http://www.votewatch.eu/en/environmental-impacts-of-shale-gas-and-shale-oil-extraction-activities-motion-for-a-resolution-after.html#/##vote-tabs-list-1
So most of our attention should be on pressurising Derek Vaughan to get it right this time. Bufton and Swinburne are both probably hopeless cases, but need telling nonetheless. Put a word of praise into anything you send to Jill Evans – and encourage her to do the right thing again.
Bridgend's Green Leftie 
I have sent this to all 4 members but people should know that they need to put their complete address at the bottom along with their name so that the MEP can confirm that they are his/her constituents. Otherwise they may well ignore the request.
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ENCOURAGING!! Vaughan voted against the moratorium in November – so we seem to be getting through to him
Dear Andy,
Thank you for your email on the proposal for a revised Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA).
Labour MEPs agree with the need to update this legislation in line with policy developments. Its aim should be to ensure that a range of criteria are taken into account when assessing a project with broad implications on the surrounding environment, and that this process should be effectively streamlined and robust.
It is important that biodiversity, the use of natural resources, climate change and natural and man-made disaster risks are included among the factors to be assessed. Transparency and public participation in the assessment should be strengthened, and the independence of the competent authority vis-à-vis the developer ensured.
With regards specifically to the inclusion of all unconventional fossil fuels (such as shale gas) in the framework of the EIA, this was proposed by the Parliament’s lead MEP or rapporteur Andrea Zanoni. Labour MEPs will support that position and the compromise amendment you cite in the committee vote, which has been moved to next week. It is important that any exploration and extraction involving fracking is subject to a mandatory EIA. Such a step would follow the clear lead given by the Parliament’s report on the Environmental impacts of shale gas and shale oil extraction activities, which my colleague Linda McAvan led on for the Socialist and Democrat Group when it went through Parliament last year.
Yours sincerely,
Derek.
Derek Vaughan MEP
Labour MEP for Wales
European Parliament
ASP 13G 252
Rue Wiertz
Brussels, 1047
Tel: 0032 228 45419
Fax: 0032 228 49419
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