The proposed new Irving oil refinery for Saint John will not undergo a full environmental impact assessment, and one New Brunswick environmental group is shocked.

The Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency announced Thursday the proposed scope of the EIA would be restricted to the environmental impact of constructing a pier and breakwater on the site. 

A spokesperson for the agency said an examination of air emissions as part of the EIA is unnecessary, because the refinery project would already be subject to strict federal law on greenhouse gas emissions.

David Coon of the New Brunswick Conservation Council says it's hard to believe the federal government is not doing a full environmental impact assessment on a project of this size. 

He calls the decision appalling.

"This is going to have a massive impact on increasing greenhouse gas emissions, and yet the minister's decided to narrowly focus an assessment on the harbour development around it instead of looking at the impact of the emissions," Coon said. "It's horrendous. Horrendous."

Coon says it makes you stop and pause when you realize the federal environment minister flew to Saint John to meet with the Irvings but has refused to answer any of the Conservation Council's correspondence. 

"We raised these issues with [Environment] Minister [John] Baird in a letter three months ago and we haven't had the courtesy of a reply," Coon said. "Yet the minister found time in his busy schedule to fly to Saint John for a private meeting with the Irvings to discuss the refinery project."

Coon says carbon dioxide and nitrogen oxides will cross provincial and international boundaries, and that the federal government has legal obligations regarding the impact of increased greenhouse gas emissions on global warming.

He says the council hasn't ruled out taking legal action if the federal government refuses to do a full environmental impact assessment on the refinery project.