#Revision of Federal Law I. Criminal Law § 5 Environmental Damage

69 messages · Page 1 of 1 (latest)

acoustic ravine
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Federal Law I. Criminal Law § 5 currently reads:

§ 5 Environmental Damage [Criminal, Public]
(1) 1 Failing to contain environmentally damaging substances in a way that reasonably protects the environment from harm entails an administrative fine of up to 1.000 €.
(2) 1 Disposing environmentally damaging substances outside of a legally owned and persistently claimed property is punishable with a fine of up to 5 daily rates. 
(3) 1 Being responsible for notable and reasonably avoidable damage to nature on either public or private property is punishable with a fine of at least 3 and up to 10 daily rates, in especially serious cases with a fine of at least 5 and up to 15 daily rates or imprisonment. 2 The convict shall additionally pay compensation for all caused damages, present or future.

The current law has several issues:

  • As a recent court ruling showed, part (1) can be interpreted in a way that substantial harm to the environment has to occur before failure to properly contain garbage can be sanctioned. This is especially problematic, as garbage currently does not cause large amounts of pollution.
  • Following this argumentation, there is no reasonable difference between parts (1) and (3), as the latter already covers reasonably avoidable damage to nature, which includes inadequate containment of damaging substances.

As open-air landfills are unwanted and in an attempt to rectify the above stated issues, the following change to part (1) is proposed, with parts (2) and (3) remaining in effect:

(1) 1 Tailings, garbage and other environmentally damaging substances must be stored underground. 2 Failing to do so entails an administrative fine up to 1.000 €. 3 Small amounts of crafting byproducts may be temporarily stored above ground, but for no longer than 24 hours.
tepid gust
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Seems good

acoustic ravine
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Citizen Ed suggested adding a provision for excluding certain zones for cultural or landfill purposes. We could add a part (3)
(3) 1 The Federal Government may exempt specific zones from (1) and (2) in coordination with the responsible local authority as long as it does not negatively affect citizens.
and move the current part (3) to (4). The full law would then read:

§ 5 Environmental Damage [Criminal, Public]
(1) 1 Tailings, garbage and other environmentally damaging substances must be stored underground. 2 Failing to do so entails an administrative fine up to 1.000 €. 3 Small amounts of crafting byproducts may be temporarily stored above ground, but for no longer than 24 hours.
(2) 1 Disposing environmentally damaging substances outside of a legally owned and persistently claimed property is punishable with a fine of up to 5 daily rates.
(3) 1 The Federal Government may exempt specific zones from (1) and (2) in coordination with the responsible local authority as long as it does not negatively affect citizens.
(4) 1 Being responsible for notable and reasonably avoidable damage to nature on either public or private property is punishable with a fine of at least 3 and up to 10 daily rates, in especially serious cases with a fine of at least 5 and up to 15 daily rates or imprisonment. 2 The convict shall additionally pay compensation for all caused damages, present or future.

I'm not sure it is necessary, but would offer straight-forward options for landfills or cultural sites such as garbage mountain if so desired...

old fjord
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We've allowed such sites before so making it explicit I think makes sense

drifting abyssBOT
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Do we want to change Federal Law to the described above?

1️⃣ yes

2️⃣ no

Poll by pepzi ·
old fjord
forest stone
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Does that still add this bit?
(1) 1 Tailings, garbage and other environmentally damaging substances must be stored underground. 2 Failing to do so entails an administrative fine up to 1.000 €. 3 Small amounts of crafting byproducts may be temporarily stored above ground, but for no longer than 24 hours.

acoustic ravine
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sorry, copy-paste error - and yes it should, corrected now...

compact crater
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Looks like the law passes, who wants to DM it to Dennis?

old fjord
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I'll DM him

royal cloud
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Original proposal doesn't outline the hidden change, I can't really say for sure every MP read that while they voted on it lol

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§ 5 Environmental Damage [Criminal, Public]
(1) 1 Tailings, garbage and other environmentally damaging substances must be stored underground. 2 Failing to do so entails an administrative fine up to 1.000 €. 3 Small amounts of crafting byproducts may be temporarily stored above ground, but for no longer than 24 hours.
(2) 1 Disposing environmentally damaging substances outside of a legally owned and persistently claimed property is punishable with a fine of up to 5 daily rates.
(3) 1 The Federal Government may exempt specific zones from (1) and (2) in coordination with the responsible local authority as long as it does not negatively affect citizens.
(4) 1 Being responsible for notable and reasonably avoidable damage to nature on either public or private property is punishable with a fine of at least 3 and up to 10 daily rates, in especially serious cases with a fine of at least 5 and up to 15 daily rates or imprisonment. 2 The convict shall additionally pay compensation for all caused damages, present or future.

Please repeat the vote on this.

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Also what is "crafting byproducts" supposed to mean?

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That term isnt even defined somewhere

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Were you refering to environmentally damaging substances?

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Barrels or molds you get back are crafting byproducts

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Do they need to be stored below ground if its more than a small amount, lets say 20 after 24 hours?

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Was the intention to only have the exclusion apply for stuff that just went out of production so storage facilities cant make use of it?

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In that interpretation it would be illegal for a storage dump to not directly put the garbage underground when bought

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I have no intention to veto the changes (though I need to state that the federal government will due to constitutional requirements to protect environment have limited discretion for the new (3)), but a bit more clearness would be great on the "hidden" addition lol

old fjord
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It came down to me I'd like it to be clear that situations like the garbage mountain by belehoover be a-ok

acoustic ravine
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So the intention of (1) 3 is that garbage from research tables and tailings from rocker boxes can be stored aboveground for a limited amount of time (especially in the early game). This is not intended for storing garbage or tailings above ground for other reasons.

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And yes, (3) would naturally be limited by the constitutional obligations of the federation

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we can replace "crafting products" in (3) with "these substances"

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I hope we don't also have to specify what exactly "small amounts" are...

royal cloud
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The thing is that 5 (1) has already been interpreted to allow a grace-time so far. You are now adding a clause that specifically talks about that, which restricts the court in interpreting it in that way, as there is specifically something talking about it. Means, through adding the new clause, you limited the interpretation room and as such what you noted there became more important. But that works

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Means, after the change with this specific text I will no longer allow an interpretation for a storage facility to ever have a overground storage, as there is a clause that talks about temporary storage, but does not contain it. Before I did.

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In that case I simply can no longer assume that the lawmaker had the intention to allow the court sensible interpretation as they went as far as to regulate specifics. Then assuming you may also have meant garbage facilities when you specifically note only "crafting byproducts" goes too far for what I think a court should do, cause then you would likely have said "storage facilities" as well.

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E.g. the more general you keep a law, the more interpretation room you give - the more specific you get, the more you remove it.

acoustic ravine
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Indeed, the goal of this revision is to reduce the vague wording of the law - which will reduce the room for interpretation. But I think that is actually a good thing, as previously it was very difficult to assess what actually is permitted, and what crosses the line...

acoustic ravine
royal cloud
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How small is small intended? Like if a company has twenty furnaces running 247 and they only bring down tailings once a day, is that still small?

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That I don't necessarily agree with, given I don't think we ever booked someone for transporting their garbage (and at that point it isn't stored either - so if you really take it by word, wouldn't that also be illegal? Or do you consider transporting to not be storing, but the output of a crafting table is immediately storing?), despite the law saying nothing to that, but your wish is my command:

(1) 1 Tailings, garbage and other environmentally damaging substances must be stored underground. 2Small amounts of these substances resulting from manufacturing processes may temporarily be stored above ground, but for no longer than 24 hours. 3Failing to do so entails an administrative fine up to 1.000 €.

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Basically that will limit it to stuff that is directly coming from the process, but "small" is extremely debatable.

acoustic ravine
royal cloud
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I forgot the quote

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Was to your post before

royal cloud
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I have a feeling that "Negligble" might be the word for what you are seeking

acoustic ravine
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well, yes, but then we have the same issue as right now - pollution from garbage is always negligible, therefore open-air dumps are always permitted

royal cloud
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It seems like you just don't want to book people for when their overground storage is filling for a while while they do other stuff, but moving when its kinda full

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You have an interesting interpetation that just underlines needing to put garbage on half value of tailings.

acoustic ravine
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In the initial draft I used "long-term storage" for what is being restricted

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But there were some comments that that is also not well defined, therefore the current wording

royal cloud
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I can tell you that in a constitutional court the "garbage by the game mechanics doesn't pollute nearly at all" argument will be dismissed and has been in the past, due to this being a roleplay server. But we already plan to make garbage more pollution for WT to bring both in line.

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Also negligble amounts in that context I would not interpret in regard to "damage caused" at all, but actually to their amounts.

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Garbage is also ugly, smells and makes people sick.

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The fact it doesnt do that in Eco would be ignored - as thats the point of this server.

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Let me quickly chat with ice where we are on making garbage more polluting

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That will probably help this more

acoustic ravine
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I think most people would agree with that

royal cloud
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I fully get the discrepancy between the impact garbage should portray and the one it absolutely isn't - we planned to change that at core for a while.

acoustic ravine
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But still, I'm wondering if the §5(1) might still require a revision to make it clearer, so that lower courts can more easily rule to the described intent of the law

royal cloud
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And I am aware that some people are just like "Sorry if the game mechanics don't do it, i dont want to be bothered"

royal cloud
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E.g. you don't want people to need to do their processes directly in a dump, but have some leeway to get it away

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Just like there is some leeway interpreted into when to clear stumps after eradicating a forest

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But that leeway was crossed in the past 😄

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PJ probably still knows, but a company that does tons of logging will simply have to plan cleaning up into their active process, just killing the forest and then maybe a few hours later cleaning it up was considered to violate the law.

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Or am I wrong?

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Currently investigating what we can do with garbage, getting back as soon as i know.

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Might have to be a vanilla change if its unmoddable.

acoustic ravine
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Thanks - in that case a law revision may not be necessary after all.

royal cloud
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Huh, don't you want the exclusion at very least?

acoustic ravine
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I don't care about that personally, my main motivation for this revision was to clearly restrict open-air garbage dumps in a way that preserves the original intent of the law. I only added the exclusion based on feedback that it otherwise would be overly restrictive for future governments who might want to make open-air dumps. In my opinion, if they want it, they can instigate such a law change themselves at that time. But if another MP wants to pick up the law revision from here, that would be fine with me as well...

royal cloud
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So the whole problem was rooted in garbage supposed to be a pollutant but effectively not being one to begin with?

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Someone could have mentioned that in feedback 😄

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In any case Jens will check garbage for 11, wet tailings has 150% of tailings, so i guess garbage getting 50% of tailings can be forseen

royal cloud
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Garbage pollution is more than doubled and the one of tailings and wet tailings also notably increased in 11.