An environmental regulator can work only if governments see the value of nature The Supreme Court’s notice to the Centre on a public interest plea to set up a national environmental regulator under the Environment (Protection) Act, 1986 revives an issue that successive governments have preferred to ignore, in spite of specific orders passed by the same court more than nine years ago. There is no consensus on what a new regulator can achieve, since official policy privileges ease of doing business. The draft Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) Notification 2020, which seeks to advance that goal, makes no effort to disguise the desire to virtually eliminate civil society’s role. It does not encourage the public to voice its views and report violations, while independent scrutiny of proposals is weakened. In fact, the EIA process, especially after the notification in 2006, has been heavily critiqued for conflicts of interest - the proponent of a project is responsible for producing the EIA report — while clearances under forest, wildlife, air and water quality laws are heavily weighted in favour of promoters. Rather than reform the system, in 2011 and 2014, the Centre rebuffed the apex court on the question of forming an independent regulator, contending that its orders in the Lafarge mining case were only in the nature of a suggestion, and later sought time but decided not to act. The current PIL is forcing the government to come up with a fresh explanation on why it has been sitting on its hands all along. Yet, for a national regulator to work, the government must recognise the limits to extractive growth, respect a neutral body and preserve the integrity of the environment.