Activists and lawyers reading through the plan immediately saw something that they believed was seriously wrong. The new plan indicated that companies that violated India's regulations on environmental clearances would simply be fined and then allowed to continue whatever they were doing, instead of being charged with a criminal offense, as they had been before.

Sound bad? Well, that's the system we more or less already have in the United States. And now, according to an investigation by the Indian Express newspaper, it is clear that the United States' Supplemental Environments Project Policy is where India got the idea.

The investigation needn't have been very cumbersome -- it just took putting the two documents side by side. Jay Mazoomdar, the author of the article, found that a full 2,900 words of the 3,850 in the Indian plan were lifted word for word from the American one.

India has already given environmentalists cause for concern with its massive scaling up of coal mining, which as a process as well as a fuel contributes greatly to global carbon emissions. Coal mining would also be subject to the new, more lenient regulations on environmental clearances, which might promote deforestation and river pollution, not to mention the displacement of people who live on top of coal reserves.

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It also appears that India will not officially join the landmark Paris Agreement on climate change anytime soon. That is because it has been blocked by China from joining the Nuclear Suppliers Group, a multilateral nonproliferation organization, and India claims that joining that group is a precondition to getting on board with Paris. Without India, it becomes far less likely that the Paris Agreement will come into full force this year, as hoped.

Here are some instances of alleged plagiarism from the Indian Express investigation:

1. US (Introduction A): Supplemental Environmental Project (SEP) is an environmentally beneficial project or activity that is not required by law, but that a defendant agrees to undertake as part of the settlement of an enforcement action.

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India (Clause 1): An Environmental Supplemental Plan (ESP) is an environmentally beneficial project or activity that is not required by law, but that an alleged violator of Environmental Impact Assessment Notification, 2006 agrees to undertake as part of the process of environmental clearance.

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2. US (II D): SEPs provide defendants with an opportunity to develop and demonstrate new technologies that may prove more protective of human health and the environment than existing processes and procedures.

India (4 iii): Innovative Technology: Environmental Supplemental Plan will provide the proponent and the Expert Group with an opportunity to develop and demonstrate new technologies that may prove more protective of human health and the environment than existing processes and procedures.

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3. US (IV A III): The project must demonstrate that it is designed to reduce:

a. The likelihood that similar violations will occur in the future;

b. The adverse impact to public health and/or the environment to which the violation at issue contributes; or,

c. The overall risk to public health and/or the environment potentially affected by the violation at issue.

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India (5): The project must demonstrate that it is designed to remediate the ecological damage caused due to violations and it will reduce,

a. The likelihood that similar violations will occur in the future;

b. The adverse impact to public health and the environment to which the violation at issue contributes;

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c. The overall risk to public health and the environment potentially affected by the violation at issue.

A secretary in India's Environment Ministry told the Indian Express that "we borrowed the idea [of ESP] from the U.S. Most Western countries follow this practice. But the language of our draft is different. Nothing was copied."

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