EPBC Act cumulative impacts under the microscope: latest Full Federal Court decision

Key Points:

The Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act has no mandatory requirement for the Minister to consider cumulative impacts from other projects outside the proponent's control.

A recent Full Federal Court decision on "cumulative impacts" under the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 (Cth) gives some certainty to the scope of cumulative impact assessment, and shows that they must have some relationship with the project being assessed (Tarkine National Coalition v Minister for the Environment [2015] FCAFC 89).

Cumulative impacts of other projects under the EPBC Act: not relevant

The Full Court undertook an extensive analysis of what it called "the tightly regulated decision-making process under the EPBC Act", and made three key findings.