parliamentary work on energy, PFAS and even agriculture suspended

Many bills and parliamentary work are at a standstill after the dissolution of the National Assembly, particularly on energy and the environment.

This is one of the consequences of the dissolution of the National Assembly. The bills and proposed laws currently under examination, as well as the commissions of inquiry, are put on hold or will fall by the wayside. They are suspended in the event of dissolution as provided for in article 12 of the Constitution. Files at a standstill in many sectors, particularly those of energy and the environment.

To begin with, there is the suspension of the multi-year energy programming, in other words the document supposed to present France’s energy strategy. More nuclear and renewable energy were planned, as well as less fossil fuels. The objective set out in this document was to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050. This strategy, initially, should have been the subject of a law in Parliament. Due to lack of a majority, the government gave up and preferred to act by decrees, still with a public consultation.

This multi-annual energy program will therefore still be a long time coming. “This week, we should normally have had a consultation on this energy programmingexplains Nicolas Goldberg, expert consultant in the sector, and in the weeks that followed, decrees would have been issued on how we save energy, how we rebuild nuclear reactors, how we use wind, solar or biomethane. All of this is now on pause, so we will still have some latency time before all of this is decided.”

For their part, Republican senators have written their own proposed energy programming law. A text which was to be debated in session in the Senate on Tuesday June 11 and Wednesday. But here too, work is suspended during the campaign.

The agricultural orientation law is the other text which risks being slowed down. This bill on food sovereignty and the renewal of generations of farmers was adopted at first reading in the Assembly two weeks ago. It was to be examined in the Senate at the end of June. We will therefore have to wait for work to resume.

There is also uncertainty for the proposed law against PFAS, eternal pollutants, these harmful chemical substances that are even found in Teflon pans. Adopted at first reading in the Assembly and the Senate, it must return to the Assembly for second reading. The Ecologist-EELV deputy who instigated it was aiming for the end of the year to include it on the agenda. But Nicolas Thierry recognizes that the cards have been reshuffled and the future of this text remains uncertain.

Finally, the parliamentary commissions of inquiry put an end to their work. And among them, the commission of inquiry into the A69 motorway between Toulouse and Castres. A project against which thousands of people demonstrated again this weekend in Tarn. MPs were due to hear former Prime Minister Élisabeth Borne on Wednesday. A hearing obviously canceled, just like the report, which should have been delivered before August 5.