According to the regulations of the 2014 Law on Environmental Protection, Decree No. 18/2015/NĐ-CP, and Decree No. 40/2019/NĐ-CP, projects that fall under certain criteria must prepare a new environmental impact assessment report. However, the 2020 Law on Environmental Protection and relevant implementation guidelines no longer mention this requirement.

Mr. Xuân Trung (Hanoi) inquired whether the approved environmental impact assessment report from 2015 can be used as a basis for continuing the project implementation.

The Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment responds to this issue as follows:

The Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment appreciates your research on the provisions of the 2020 Law on Environmental Protection for application and implementation.

Regarding your inquiry, the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment provides the following opinion:

For projects that have been approved for an environmental impact assessment report in 2015 under the 2014 Law on Environmental Protection but have not been implemented within 24 months, the validity of the project's environmental impact assessment report has expired according to Article 20, Clause 1, Point a of the 2014 Law on Environmental Protection.

In the case of continuing the project implementation, the project owner is responsible for reviewing the provisions of the 2020 Law on Environmental Protection and related guidelines (such as Government Decree No. 08/2022/NĐ-CP dated January 10, 2022, detailing certain provisions of the Law on Environmental Protection, and Circular No. 02/2022/TT-BTNMT dated January 10, 2022, providing detailed guidance for the implementation of certain provisions of the Law on Environmental Protection) to fulfill the environmental procedures related to the project.