Power options in the 4th phase

As of this writing (September 2017), it is not clear exactly what power options will be evaluated by the steering and expert committees of the 4. phase of the Master Plan. This is due to the Icelandic Parliament not having yet passed the necessary parliamentary resolution to give the categorization of power options resulting from the 3. phase legal standing. 

According to the Master Plan Act, every phase of the Master Plan concludes with the expert committee submitting its recommendations for categorization of power options to the Minister for the Environment and Natural Resources. The minister presents those as a proposal for a parliamentary resolution to the Icelandic Parliament in collaboration with the Minister for Industries and Innovation. Once Parliament has passed the proposal, the parliamentary resolution on the categorization of power options becomes legally binding. 

A proposal for a parliamentary resolution on the categorization of the power options evaluated in the third phase of the Master Plan was presented to the Icelandic Parliament in fall 2016 and again in spring 2017. Neither of those proposals was fully processed by the Parliament and thus never came up for a vote. The parliamentary session of fall 2017 was too short to allow for the re-introduction of the proposal.